Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/90

 Judæan interest: in 18 the scene is Hebron; 19$1-28$ is a legend of the Dead Sea basin; 19$30ff.$ deals with the origin of the neighbouring peoples of Moab and Ammon; 38 is based on the internal tribal history of Judah (and is not, as has been supposed, charged with animosity towards that tribe: see p. 455). Finally, while Joseph's place of honour was too firmly established to be challenged, it is J who, in defiance of the older tradition, transfers the birthright and the hegemony from Reuben to Judah (49$8ff.$ 35$22f.$, the Joseph narratives).—These indications make it at least relatively probable that in J we have a Judæan recension of the patriarchal tradition, while E took its shape in the northern kingdom.

The composite work JE is the result of a redactional operation, which was completed before the other components (D and P) were incorporated in the Pent. The redactors (R$JE$) have done their work (in Genesis) with consummate skill and care, and have produced a consecutive narrative whose strands it is often difficult to unravel. They have left traces of their hand in a few harmonising touches, designed to remove a discrepancy between J and E (16$9f.$ 28$21b?$ 31$49ff. (pass.)$ 39$1$ 41$50?$ 46$1$ 50$10f.$): some of these, however, may be later glosses. Of greater interest are a number of short additions, of similar import and complexion but occurring both in J and E, which may, not with certainty but with great probability, be assigned to these editors (13$14-17$ 18$17-19$ 22$15-18$ 26$3b-5$ 28$14$ 32$10-13$ 46$3b[Greek: b]$): to this redaction we are disposed also to attribute a thorough revision of ch. 15. In these passages we seem to detect a note of tremulous anxiety regarding the national future of Israel and its tenure of the land of Canaan, which is at variance with the optimistic outlook of the original sources, and suggests that the writers are living under the shadow of impending exile. A slight trace of Deuteronomic phraseology in 18$17ff.$ and 26$3bff.$ confirms the impression that the redaction took place at some time between the publication of Deuteronomy and the Exile.