Page:A Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Genesis (Morgenstern, 1919, jewishinterpreta00morg).pdf/239

 The Unity of sojourn

at

extreme. story,

Shechem

On

the one

is

221

the Jacob Story

disturbing and disappointing in

hand

it

the

interrupts the continuity of the

and delays unnecessarily,

illogically

and undramatically

the visiting of divine retribution, in accordance with Jacob's

words,

upon Rachel, for having

stolen

her

father's

idols.

And

on the other hand, it accords but poorly with the rest This told that Jacob had been but twenty years the story. of and had married Leah only after seven years. with Laban,

Therefore his oldest child could have been at this time not more than twelve years of age, and the others must have Yet the Shechem episode been correspondingly younger.

makes ter,

all

the children of Jacob, including Dinah, the daugh-

of adult age.

This proves that the Shechem episode was

not a part of the original story, as arranged by these compilers,

of

but was inserted

some

later,

probably because of the impulse

quasi-historian to preserve a Jacob tradition

from

oblivion.

Facts like these obscure the meaning and purpose of the main narrative somewhat. But when they are stripped away, the main Jacob story stands out clearly and unmistakably as a unit of both narration and thought, the central theme of which is easily determined. With this introduction we are

ready to consider the Jacob story in

detail.