Text and Canon

Essays in Honor of John H. Sailhamer

Robert L. Cole, Paul J. Kissling, Cole, Kissling

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781498285346
• eBook ISBN: 9781532632136
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

This volume is a collection of essays written by former students and colleagues of the late John H. Sailhamer. It includes scholarly treatments of compositional and canonical issues across the Tanakh. These essays are presented in honor of the memory and the legacy of Dr. Sailhamer.

1

The Testament of Jacob and the Blessing of Moses

A Narrative Approach

Paul J. Kissling

Lincoln Christian Seminary

Introduction

John Sailhamer first alerted me to the importance of Genesis 49 and Deuteronomy 33 in the canonical redaction of the Hebrew Bible.1 Standing on his shoulders in this essay, I will attempt to use a narrative approach to the intertextual relationship between these two important chapters that focuses on the narratorial connections to the preceding text in Genesis 1–48, the intermediate texts in Genesis 50—Deuteronomy 32, and the succeeding texts in the remainder of the Hebrew Bible which follow Deuteronomy 33.

Walter Brueggemann in his 1982 commentary has this to say about Jacob’s testamentary blessing of his sons in Genesis 49:

The poem very probably is early. But its placement here is secondary. It has no evident connection with the context and no bearing on the larger narrative . . . While it poses as an anticipation, it is surely descriptive of a situation of a later time of history, at the time of its composition. Thus, it is of primary interest for the historical data it supplies. Probably, it intends to be political propaganda to advance some tribal claims at the expense of others . . . [T]he poem of chapter 49 seems to have no important connection with its context . . . Its interpretation is not likely to serve a theological expositor very richly.2

Although Brueggemann can perhaps be excused given the date of publication of his commentary and the virtual infancy of narrative analysis at the time, his assertions seem today to be transparently in error. Not only is the “blessing” or testament of Jacob connected in many ways to its narrative context but it serves for the rest of the Pentateuch what Laurence Turner has termed within the book of Genesis as an “announcement of plot” much as the promise to Abram in 12:1–3, the birth prophecy of Jacob and Esau in 25:23, and the dreams of Joseph in 37:1–17 do for the book of Genesis as a whole.3 Just as in the other “announcements of plot,” Genesis 49 has no simplistic narrative resolution and the differences between Jacob’s testament and Moses’s blessing at the end of the Pentateuch are striking. In this essay I will examine Genesis 49 (the “testament”4 of Jacob) and Deuteronomy 33 (the “blessing of Moses”) intertextually, asking how the intervening (Genesis 50—Deuteronomy 32) and following narratives help to explain the differences between them and asking what this implies about the nature of Jacob’s words. Perhaps then the potential richness of its theological ore will be more apparent.

The Big Four: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah

The first four sons of Jacob, all through his “hated”5 wife Leah, begin both the testament of Jacob and the blessing of Moses. Taken as a whole Jacob’s testamentary statements explain why Reuben the firstborn, and Simeon and Levi, the second and third sons, are passed over as the royal and leading tribe.

Jacob’s testamentary statement for Reuben recalls his earlier affair with Jacob’s concubine Bilhah:

Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might and the first fruits of my vigor, excelling in rank and excelling in power. Unstable as water, you shall no longer excel because you went up onto your father’s bed; then you defiled it—you went up onto my couch! (Gen 49:3–4)6

By contrast, Moses’s blessing is muted, saying more by what is not said than by what is said: “May Reuben live, and not die out, even though his numbers are few” (Deut 33:6).7 In his “blessing” Jacob ends his long silence about Reuben’s sexual liaison with Jacob’s concubine8 Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid, which he had “heard” about (Gen 35:22) in the aftermath of the death of his beloved Rachel. The excelling of Reuben in dignity and strength will be ended by or because of his moral instability (פַּחַז). Laurence Turner suggests that Jacob’s “miserly” blessing of Reuben serves to characterize Jacob as much as Reuben:

While Reuben might well be receiving his just deserts, it also reveals a somewhat vindictive side of Jacob, who waits until his deathbed (cf. 49.29) to vent his spleen on his son. In addition, Jacob’s assessment is hardly evenhanded. Since this is supposedly a chapter of blessings (49.28), one might have expected some positive aspects of Reuben to be recalled. He was the one, after all, who saved Joseph’s life (37.21–22, 29; cf. 42.22). While this matter might be unknown to Jacob, he had witnessed Reuben’s magnanimous if somewhat impulsive gesture, when trying to persuade Jacob to send Benjamin to Egypt (42.37). One gets the impression that Reuben is being treated somewhat unfairly. One reckless act of sexual impropriety, ignored by Jacob up to this point, appears to outweigh any virtue he might possess.9

But this may be an ungenerous reading of Jacob. Wright suggests that the sexual liaison with Bilhah was an attempt to “prematurely la[y] claim to the patriarchal rights and responsibilities of the firstborn.”10 De Hoop suggests that “Reuben’s action might be construed as an attempt to grab power by seizing his father’s ‘harem.’”11 He compares the similarities in language between Reuben’s actions here and Absalom’s in 2 Sam 16:21. In both cases the person “went” to his “father’s concubine(s)” and “Israel” would or did “hear” of it. Since Absalom is transparently starting a revolt against his father it is possible to understand Reuben’s actions in the same way. One problem with this suggestion is that Reuben only slept with one of Jacob’s concubines, not his entire “harem,” something he did not have, unlike Absalom’s father David.

Reuben’s involvement in the sexual politics of the family through providing his mother Leah the mandrakes with which she then “purchased” sex with Jacob to birth Issachar is perhaps another example of this tendency (Gen 30:14–18).

In any case Reuben fares little better in the b...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Biography of John H. Sailhamer
• Chapter 1: The Testament of Jacob and the Blessing of Moses
• Chapter 2: Abram as Israel, Israel as Abram
• Chapter 3: Wisdom is Worth a Thousand Laws
• Chapter 4: What’s in a Name
• Chapter 5: Persuasion and Allusion
• Chapter 6: Edom’s Desolation and Adam’s Multiplication
• Chapter 7: The New Exodus in the Composition of the Twelve
• Chapter 8: Psalm 3
• Chapter 9: Canonical Approaches, New Trajectories, and the Book of Daniel
• Chapter 10: Ezra, Nehemiah, and Ezra-Nehemiah
• Chapter 11: Choosing the Right Words
• John H. Sailhamer: A Comprehensive Bibliography