Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/529

 the conquest of the country (We. Sta. Guthe, al.): Steuern, goes further, and infers that the rise of Benjamin brought about the dissolution of the Rachel tribe. But all such speculations are precarious. The name Benjamin, however, does furnish evidence that this particular tribe was formed in Palestine (v.i. on $18$).

'''21, 22a. Reuben's incest (J).—21.' Tower of the Flock''] Such towers would be numerous in any pastoral country; and the place here referred to is unknown. Mic. 4$8$ proves nothing; and the tradition which locates it near Bethlehem rests on this passage. The order of J's narrative (see p. 414) would lead us to seek it E of the Jordan, where the tribe of Reuben was settled.—22a. and when Israel heard] Probably a temporal clause, of which the apodosis has been intentionally omitted.

The story, no doubt, went on to tell of a curse pronounced on Reuben, which explained his loss of the birthright (so Gu.; otherwise Di.). The crime is referred to in 49$4$. The original motive is perhaps suggested by the striking parallel in Il. ix. 449 ff. (Gu.):

,,.

Note that in 30$14ff.$ also, Reuben plays a part in the restoration of his mother's conjugal rights.—An ethnographic reading of the legend finds its historic basis in some humiliation inflicted by Reuben on the Bilhah-tribe, or one of its branches (Dan or Naphtali). See on 49$4$.

'''22b-26. A list of Jacob's sons''' (P).—In two points the list deviates from the tradition of JE (chs. 29. 30): The children are arranged according to their mothers; and the birth of Benjamin is placed in Mesopotamia. Otherwise the order of JE is preserved: Leah precedes Rachel; but Rachel's maid precedes Leah's.—On the position of the section in the original Code, see pp. 423, 443.

22a. The double accentuation means that $22a$ was treated by the Mass. sometimes as a whole v., sometimes as a half; the former for private, the latter for liturgical reading (Str. 129; Wickes, Prose Accents, 130). Note the 'gap in the middle of the verse,' which G fills up with .—] The name, instead of Jacob, is from this point onwards a fairly reliable criterion of the document J in Gen.—26. ] [E] and Heb. MSS.