Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/385

 17. a smoking oven and a blazing torch] the two together making an emblem of the theophany, akin to the pillar of cloud and fire of the Exodus and Sinai narratives (cf. Ex. 3$2$ 19$9$ 13$21$ etc.). The oven is therefore not a symbol of Gehenna reserved for the nations (Ra.).—On the appearance of the, see the descriptions and illustrations in Riehm, HWb. 178; Benzinger, Arch.$2$ 65.—passed between these pieces] cf. Jer. 34$18f.$ (the only other allusion).

On this rite see Kraetzschmar, op. cit. 44 ff. Although attested by only one other OT reference, its prevalence in antiquity is proved by many analogies in classical and other writers. Its original significance is hardly exhausted by the well-known passage in Livy (i. 24), where a fate similar to that of the victim is invoked on the violators of the covenant. This leaves unexplained the most characteristic feature,—the passing between the pieces. Rob. Sm. surmises that the divided victim was eaten by the contracting parties, and that afterwards "the parties stood between the pieces, as a symbol that they were taken within the mystical life of the victim" (RS$2$, 480 f.).

18. This ceremony constitutes a Berîth, of which the one provision is the possession of 'the land.' A Berîth necessarily implies two or more parties; but it may happen that from the nature of the case its stipulations are binding only on one. So here: Yahwe alone passes (symbolically) between the pieces, because He alone contracts obligation.—The land is described according to its ideal limits; it is generally thought, however, that the closing words, along with $19-21$, were added by a Deuteronomic editor, and that in the original J the promise was restricted to Canaan proper.

The (not, as elsewhere  = Wādī el-Arīsh) must be the Nile (cf. Jos. 13$3$, 1 Ch. 13$5$). On an old belief that the W. el-Arīsh was an arm of the Nile, see Tuch.—] cf. Dt. 1$7$ 11$24$, Jos. 1$4$. The boundary was never actually reached in the history of Israel (the notice

17. —] pf. with sense of plup. (G-K. § 111 g).—] only here and Ezk. 12$6. 7. 12$. G is certainly wrong (? ?).—] GVS read the ptcp., hence Ball emends .—] the noun recurs only Ps. 136$13$; but cf. the analogous use of the vb. 1 Ki. 3$25. 26$.