Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/640

 320 f.; Ball, Light from the East, 119 f.—horsemen, however, never appear in them: "We have no representations of Egyptians on horseback; and were it not for a few literary allusions, we should not know that the subjects of the Pharaoh knew how to ride" (Erman, LAE, 492 f.).—10, 11. The mourning at the grave.—Gōren hā-Āṭād] 'the threshing-floor of the bramble'; the locality is unknown (v.i.).—11. Ābēl Miẓraim] one of several place-names compounded with = 'meadow' (Nu. 33$49$, Ju. 11$33$, 2 Sa. 20$15$, 2 Ch. 16$4$); here interpreted as 'mourning of Egypt.' The real name 'meadow of Egypt' may have commemorated some incident of the Egyptian occupation of Palestine; but the situation is unknown.—The record of the actual burying in J and E has not been preserved.

It is difficult to say whether Gōren hā-Āṭād and Ābēl Miẓraim are two different places, or two names for one place. Jerome (OS, 85$15ff.$) identifies the former with Bethagla (= 'Ain Ḥaǧla, or Ḳaṣr Ḥaǧla, S of Jericho [Buhl, GP, 180]), but on what authority we do not know. The conjecture that it was in the neighbourhood of Rachel's grave depends entirely on a dubious interpretation of 48$7$. Since there appears to be a doublet in v.$10$ ($10a_$ || $10b$), it is natural to suppose that one name belongs to J and the other to E, and therefore there is no great presumption that the localities are identical ( in $11$ may be a gloss). According to the present text, both were E of the Jordan ($10a 11b$); but such a statement if found in one document would readily be transferred by a redactor to the other; and all we can be reasonably confident of is that one or other was across the Jordan, for it is almost inconceivable that should be an interpolation in both cases. Since it is to be assumed that in J and E the place of mourning was also the place of burial, and since the theory of a détour round the Dead Sea and the E of Jordan to arrive at any spot in W. Palestine is too extravagant to have arisen from a fanciful etymology, it would seem to follow that, according to at least one tradition, Jacob's grave was shown at some now unknown place E of the Jordan (Meyer, INS, 280 f.). Meyer's inference that Jacob was originally a transjordanic hero, is, however, a doubtful one; for the East is dotted with graves of historic personages in impossible places, and we have no assurance that tradition was more reliable in ancient times.

and is here to be preferred.—] [E] + .—10. ] The word for 'bramble' in Jotham's parable from Gerizim, Ju. 9$14f.$ (only Ps. 58$10$ again). Can there be an allusion to the threshing-floor of this passage at Shechem?—11. ] Possibly a gloss from v.$10$. If so, ([E] ), referring to  (whose gender is uncertain), must have been substi