Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/142

 what precedes, and render the noun by 'origin': 'This is the origin of,' etc. But it is doubtful if can bear any such meaning, and altogether the half-verse is in the last degree perplexing. It is in all probability a redactional insertion.

The formula (and indeed the whole phraseology) is characteristic of P; and in that document it invariably stands as introduction to the section following. But in this case the next section (2$4b$-4$26$) belongs to J; and if we pass over the J passages to the next portion of P (ch. 5), the formula would collide with 5$1$, which is evidently the proper heading to what follows. Unless, therefore, we adopt the improbable hypothesis of Strack, that a part of P's narrative has been dropped, the attempt to treat 2$4a$ in its present position as a superscription must be abandoned. On this ground most critics have embraced a view propounded by Ilgen, that the clause stood originally before 1$1$, as the heading of P's account

36$1. 9$, 1 Ch. 1$29$, Ru. 4$18$) this sense is entirely suitable; the addition of a few historical notices is not inconsistent with the idea of a genealogy, nor is the general character of these sections affected by it. There are just three cases where this meaning is inapplicable: Gn. 6$9$ 25$19$ 37$2$. But it is noteworthy that, except in the last case, at least a fragment of a genealogy follows; and it is fair to inquire whether 37$2$ may not have been originally followed by a genealogy (such as 35$22b-26$ or 46$8-27$ [see Hupfeld, Quellen, 102-109, 213-216]) which was afterwards displaced in the course of redaction (see p. 423, below). With that assumption we could explain every occurrence of the formula without having recourse to the unnatural view that the word may mean a "family history" (G-B. s.v.), or "an account of a man and his descendants" (BDB). The natural hypothesis would then be that a series of formed one of the sources employed by P in compiling his work: the introduction of this genealogical document is preserved in 5$1$ (so Ho.); the recurrent formula represents successive sections of it, and 2$4a$ is a redactional imitation. When it came to be amalgamated with the narrative material, some dislocations took place: hence the curious anomaly that a man's history sometimes appears under his own Tôlĕdôth, sometimes under those of his father; and it is difficult otherwise to account for the omission of the formula before 12$1$ or for its insertion in 36$9$. On the whole, this theory seems to explain the facts better than the ordinary view that the formula was devised by P to mark the divisions of the principal work.—] 'in their creation' or 'when they were created.' If the lit. minusc. has critical significance (Tu. Di.) the primary reading was inf. Qal ; and this requires to be supplemented by as subj. It is in this form that Di. thinks the clause originally stood at the beginning of Gen. (see on 1$1$). But the omission of and the insertion of the minusc. are no necessary consequences of the transposition of the sentence; and the small  may be merely an error in the archetypal MS, which has been mechanically repeated in all copies.