Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/481

 essentially of a solemn promise to render God some service, in the event of some particular prayer or wish being granted" (Dri.); hence it falls into two parts: a condition ($2$), and a promise ($20f.$).—20, 21a. The conditions correspond with the divine promise in $22$ (J)—(a) the presence of God; (b) protection; (c) safe return—except as regards the stipulation for bread to eat and raiment to wear. The separation of sources relieves Jacob from the suspicion of questioning the sincerity of an explicit divine promise. On 21b, v.i.—22. The promise. this stone shall be (G adds to me) a house of God] i.e. (in the view of the writer), a place of worship. It is to be noted that this reverses the actual development: the stone was first the residence of the numen, and afterwards became a maẓẓēbāh.—22b. He will pay a tithe of all his possessions. This and Am. 4$15$ are the only pre-Deuteronomic references to the tithe (cf. 14$4$).

In its present setting the above narrative forms the transition link between the Jacob-Esau and the Jacob-Laban cycle of legends. In substance it is, we can hardly doubt, a modification of the cultus-legend of Bethel (now Beitīn, situated on an eminence about 10 miles N of Jerusalem, a little E of the road to Nābulus), the founding of which was ascribed to the patriarch Jacob. The concrete features which point to a local origin—the erection of the maẓẓebahẓēbāh above], the ladder, the gate of heaven, and the institution of the tithe—are all indeed peculiar to the account of E, which obviously stands nearer to the sources of the native tradition than the stereotyped form of the theophany given by J. From E we learn that the immemorial sanctity of Bethel was concentrated in the sacred stone which was itself the original Bêth-'ēl, i.e. the residence of a god or spirit. This belief appears to go back to the primitive stone-*

Ex. 9$20$, Nu. 14$16$. For, G has ; cf. Ju. 18$21$ (G).—] 35$29$ 48$6$, Jos. 16$3$ 18$2$, Ju. 1$13$† . The name appears to have been known in the time of Euseb. (OS, 135$23$); and Müller (AE, 165) thinks it may be identical with Ruṣa on Eg. inscr.

21. ] G, as v.$1$.—21b can with difficulty be assigned either to the protasis or to the apodosis of the sentence. The word shows that it does not belong to E; and in all probability the cl. is to be omitted as a gloss (Di. al.). The apod. then has the same unusual form as in 22$15$.