14 August 2022 draft-bible
3. called the name. So, literally, goes the Hebrew idiom.
3. Isaac. According to a note in the WEB, “Isaac means, ‘He laughs’”. For further discussion of the names’ possible meanings, and of who, if anyone, is laughing, see Robert Martin-Achard, trans. Terrence Prendergast, “Isaac”, in the Anchor Bible Dictionary.
9. mocking. Hebrew mṣḥq. A number of proposals have been made as to what exactly it was that Ishmael was doing. Etymologically, the verb involved is related to the root ṣḥq, to laugh. Where ASV reads ‘mocking’, ESV reads ‘laughing’, NKJV reads ‘scoffing’ (all these translations as they appear at biblehub.com as of June 2022).
14. skin of water. This object, quite ordinary in some times and places and very strange in others, is simply a bag fashioned out of animal skin, used to hold water. It functioned like a bottle or canteen in the Ancient Near East. See DCH, HALOT for brief definitions.
14. and the child. Hebrew wᵉʾet ha-yeled, in which the direct object marker ʾet makes it clear that the child is the object of some verb. But which verb? Two options present themselves: ‘gave’ and ‘put’.
Option A: “And Abraham . . . took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and [also gave her] the child”.
Option B: “And Abraham … took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and [also put on her shoulder] the child”.
Robert Alter, in his famous translation and commentary on Genesis, notes that ‘many commentators’ have read according to B. However, Alter himself prefers A, on the grounds that Ishmael would have been about sixteen years old, and therefore an unlikely candidate for being put on a woman’s shoulders. But why should we think Ishmael is depicted as approximately sixteen years old in this story? Well, Genesis 21:5 has Abraham at the age of 100 when Isaac is born, and Genesis 16:16 has him at 86 when Ishmael is born. Ishmael being 14 years older than Isaac, a little more time for Isaac to be weaned puts Ishmael in the ballpark of 16.
Alter, famously, reads Genesis as more or less a literary unity, and is operating under the tacit assumption that the story-telling in chapter 21 will be consistent with a chronological scheme that is partially found in chapter 16. If Genesis is a compilation of works by multiple authors, not all of which have been made perfectly consistent, as the Documentary Hypothesis holds, then we cannot necessarily assume that a chronological note over in 16:16 governs the grammar of 21:14. Consider other traces in the Genesis 21 narrative that hint at a young and small boy. The story in 21 is premised on the idea that the boy will certainly die of thirst well before his mother does – an easy assumption to make about a toddler; a much harder one about a sixteen-year-old. Hagar ‘casts’ Ishmael down under the bush at one point, an act that is, again, easier with a small child than an adolescent. After the boy is delivered, he ‘grows up’ into an adult. And if the verb in verse 9 really does refer to simple child’s play, this also points toward a young Ishmael.
It is worth keeping in mind that the Genesis 21 story of Hagar’s flight is not the only version of this story. In Genesis 16, a version is told in which Hagar is pregnant when she runs away. The reader who wishes to become familiar with this and a variety of associated questions is encouraged to consult the literature on the Documentary Hypothesis.
15. cast. So reads the Hebrew. The WEB is unjustified in translating the colorful verb hišlik (throw) as if it were a simple śum (put).
17. an angel of God. For the reason to read ‘an angel’ here instead of ‘the angel’, see S. A. Meier, “Angel of Yahweh”, in DDD__2..
20. became an archer. Hebrew wayᵉhi robeh qaššat. If robeh is read as a form of the verb rbh ‘to grow’, then we get ‘and he became, as he grew up, an archer’, which is basically the ASV / WEB reading. On the other hand, if robeh is read as a form of the verb rbh ‘to shoot’, then robeh qaššat becomes a somewhat redundant expression for ‘archer’. Robert Alter (Genesis, ad loc.) opts for the latter option, and understands the redundancy as a way of pointing to Ishmael’s expertise as an archer. Note that either translation must deal with a certain redundancy – either the term ‘archer’ is given in two different forms, or the verse informs us twice that Ishmael grew up.
While the ASV and WEB read rbh as ‘grow’, translations reading rbh as ‘shoot’ or the like include NRSV, KJV, NIV, NLT, NASB, CSB/HCSB, JPS (1917), and NET.
25. reproved. Though ‘complained’ may slide easier across the ears, ‘reproved’ is better here. One typically complains to some superior authority, but the Hebrew term here carries no such connotations.
27. cattle. Hebrew baqar, which is better ‘cattle’ than ‘oxen’, because ‘oxen’ might be taken in its literal sense, as describing specifically male bovines which have been trained as draft animals.
31. Beersheba. Hebrew b__eʾer šebaʿ, which the text is relating to the root š-b-ʿ, ‘swear an oath’. The exact phrase ‘well of oath’ would be beʾer šᵉbuʿah, while ‘well of seven’ would be beʾer šebaʿ.
32. he. The Hebrew does not specify the subject, but it must be Abraham, because, after Abimelech and Phicol have left for Philistia, only Abraham is left in Beersheba. The ASV inserts ‘Abraham’, perhaps to clarify for readers, and the WEB follows the ASV with the addition.
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