Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/609

 circumstance an augury of the future pre-eminence of Ephr. (Gu.).—21, 22. Closing words to Joseph (E).—21. A prediction of the return to Canaan, in terms very similar to 50$24$ (also E). The explicit anticipations of the Exodus are probably all from this document (15$16$ [?] 46$4$ 50$24$).—22. one shoulder] The word may very well (like the synonymous ) have had in common speech the secondary sense of 'mountain-slope,' though no instance occurs in OT. At all events there is no reasonable doubt that the reference is to the city of Shechem, standing on the 'slope' of Gerizim, the most important centre of Israelite power in early times (see p. 416), and consecrated by the possession of Joseph's tomb (Jos. 24$32$). The peculiar value of the gift in Jacob's eyes is that the conquest was a trophy of his warlike prowess,—a tradition which has left no trace whatever except in this v. (see below).—With my sword and with my bow] Contrast Jos. 24$12$.  Vv.$21. 22$ stand in no organic connexion with each other, or with what precedes. V.$22$, in particular, not only presupposes a version of the capture of Shechem different from any found elsewhere (see p. 422 above), but is out of harmony with the situation in which the words are assumed to have been uttered. For it is scarcely credible that Jacob should have referred thus to a conquest which he had subsequently lost, and which would have to be recovered by force of arms before the bequest could take effect. But further, the expression 'above thy brethren' naturally implies that the portions of the other sons had been allotted by Jacob before his death. The verse, in short, seems to carry us back to a phase of the national tradition which ignored the sojourn in Egypt, and represented Jacob as a warlike hero who had effected permanent conquests in Palestine, and died there after dividing the land amongst his children. The situation would thus be parallel to the so-called 'Blessing of Jacob' in ch. 49, which is also independent of, though not quite incompatible with, the final recension of the patriarchal history and the migration to Egypt. For the first statement of this theory, see Meyer, INS, 227, 414 f.   XLIX. 1-28a.—The Blessing of Jacob.

This important and difficult section—one of the oldest pieces of Hebrew poetry which we possess—consists of a