Page:A Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Genesis (Morgenstern, 1919, jewishinterpreta00morg).pdf/313

Rh Joseph the Dreamer while Jacob

still

dwelt

understand

readily

Shechem

at

the

tliat

(cf.

XXXlll.

295 18-20).

We

can

sons of Jacob might well pasture their

from Shechem as far as Dothan, and that Jacob might well send the young Joseph in search of them. This is liornc out by the further fact that Joseph was finally buried at Shechem (Joshua flocks

XXIV,

32),

for

implies

this

that

Shechem and not Hebron, was

Joseph's original home.

Vv. 28a and ites

which

36,

call

the merchants of the caravan Midian-

instead of Ishmaelites, are a small fragment of a second version

of the Joseph story, which

Notice

that

XXXVII,

XXXIX,

1

was

at

repeats

one time current in ancient Israel. what has been already told in

36.

Rending the garments and wearing sack-cloth were from most ancient times the regular signs of mourning in the Orient. XXXVIII. This story of Judah is not a part of the Joseph story at all, but is a fragment preserved from an older work, and was XXXIX, 1 is inserted in this place by some late writer or editor. According to XXXVIII the direct continuation of XXXVII. 35. Judah was dwelling apart from his brothers in the vicinity of Adullam in southern Palestine, while according to XLIII, 3ff. he seems to have been dwelling with his brothers. The chapter is of particular V.

34.

the

interest

because of

Ruth IV.

12

and

account of the 1)irth of Perez, according to one of the ancestors of King David.

its

18. \n