Page:A Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Genesis (Morgenstern, 1919, jewishinterpreta00morg).pdf/220

 The Book of Genesis

202

A

few of these traditions were

the story of Jacob asleep in the

subsequent realization that this spot (or a)

account

for

in

which he had inad-

(XXVIII,

Deity was present the

of his

to sl^ep was a sacred place, in which

down

vertently lain the

Thus dream and his

local in character.

field,

origin

10-22),

arose

to

and sanctity of the great northern

The story implies that Jacob discovered the presence of the Deity at Bethel, and therefore national shrine at Bethel.

up the sacred stone pillar there, and founded the original and instituted the practice of bringing tithes

set

sanctuary, thither.

The (XXXI,

story

of

the

covenant

and

between Jacob

Laban

22-54), centers about the place east of the Jordan,

known

probably

boundary

line

Mizpeh

as

in

Gilead,

between the territory of

which marked the typified

Israel,

by

Jacob, the traditional ancestor of Israel, and the territory of the Syrians or

Aramaean. made between

the

Aramaeans to Such a treaty Israel

(875-854 B. C).

the north,

typified

by Laban

w^as, in all likelihood, actually

and Syria during the reign of Ahab

This story must have had

its

origin

in

period.

this

The

story of Jacob at

probably arose to account

Shechem (XXXIII, 18-XXV, for, or to justify,

4),

Israelite posses-

and powerful Canaanite city of Shechem in central Palestine. Since Shechem was still a Canaanite city, and had not yet passed into Israelite hands in the days of Gideon and his son Abimelech (Judges IX), it folsion of the important

lows that this story, at least

have been conceived

in

its

present form, could not

until after that time, at the very earliest,

therefore, not before the 12th century B. C.

Likewise XXXII, 2-3, tells of a place east of the Jordan which Jacob gave the name Mahanaim. This place later became the seat of government of the petty kingdom of Ishbosheth, after the death of Saul and his other sons at the hands of the Philistines (II Samuel II, 8fif.). The verses to