Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/390

 meaning is that Ishmael will be an inconvenient neighbour to his settled brethren.—13, 14. From this experience of Hagar the local deity and the well derive their names. 13. Thou art a God of vision] i.e. (if the following text can be trusted) both in an objective and a subjective sense,—a God who may be seen as well as one who sees.—Have I even here (? v.i.) seen after him who sees me?] This is the only sense that can be extracted from the MT, which, however, is strongly suspected of being corrupt.—14. Bĕ'ēr Lahay Rōî] apparently means either 'Well of the Living One who sees me,' or 'Well of "He that sees me lives"'. The name occurs again 24$62$ 25$11$.—between Ḳadesh and Bered] On Ḳadesh, see on 14$7$. Bered is unknown. In Arab tradition the well of Hagar is plausibly enough identified with 'Ain-Muweiliḥ, a caravan station about 12 miles to the W of Ḳadesh (Palmer, Des. of Exod. ii. 354 ff.). The well must have been a chief sanctuary of the Ishmaelites; hence the later Jews, to whom Ishmael was a name for all Arabs, identified it with the sacred well Zemzem at Mecca.—15, 16. The birth of Ishmael, recorded by P.

The general scope of $13f.$ is clear, though the details are very obscure. By a process of syncretism the original numen of the well had come to be regarded as a particular local manifestation of Yahwe; and the attempt is made to interpret the old names from the standpoint of the higher religion. and are traditional names of which the real meaning had been entirely forgotten, and the etymologies here given are as fanciful as in all similar cases. (1) In the Mass. punctuation recognises the roots, 'live,' and , 'see,' taking as circumscribed gen.; but that can hardly be correct. We. (Prol.$6$ 323 f.), following Mich. and Ges. (Th. 175), conjectures that in the first element

13. ] G, V Tu Deus qui vidisti me: both reading (ptcp. with suff.).—For, Ba. would substitute , deleting .—The of $13b. 14a$ is not the pausal form of the preceding  (which would be : 1 Sa. 16$12$, Nah. 3$6$, Jb. 33$21$), but Qal ptcp. with suff. The authority of the accentuation may, of course, be questioned.—14. ] indef. subj., for which [E] substitutes .—] S T$O$  (see on v.$7$). T$J$ has (Elusa), probably el-Ḥalaṣa, about 12 miles SW of Beersheba. It has been supposed that may be identical with a place  in the Gerar district, mentioned by Eus. (OS, 145$2$ [Lag. 299$76$]), who explains the name as (= ): see v. Gall, CSt. 43.