Let’s Fix That
Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. Genesis 21:33 NASB
The Everlasting God – In his article, “Genesis 21:33: A Study In the Development of a Biblical Text and Its Rabbinic Transformation,” Nahum Sarna examines several oddities found in this text. The problems begin with the first verb, a singular, third person. Since the preceding verse includes two men, Abimelech and Pichol, this verb must refer to prior narrative. Therefore, all renditions introduce “Abraham” into the text, a name that is not found in the Hebrew. This causes the scholar to notice a disjunction between this verse and the rest of the story. Sarna writes: “There seems no way of avoiding the conclusion that Genesis 21:33 belonged to an independent narrative, now thoroughly truncated, that dealt with Abraham’s tamarisk at Beer-sheba.”[1] This raises the further issue: Why was this story left out? The answer is theology, particularly rabbinic theology.
Sarna notices that the expression ‘el ‘olam as a title for God never reoccurs in the Tanakh, “although it has turned up in a fifteenth century B.C.E. inscription found at Serabit el-Khadem in Sinai.”[2]
. . . the retention of the unique Hebrew divine name title ‘el ‘olam in Genesis 21:33 means that it must have belonged to the original, pre-pentateuchal form of the narrative. It is of great significance, however, that in the present narrative the divinity whom Abraham involved has been carefully dissociated from any pagan deity by identifying ‘el ‘olam with YHWH.[3]
Once again we must ask, “Why?” Sarna provides an answer:
The association of sacred trees with pagan cults, especially with fertility cults, made them anathema to the official religion of Israel. . . Rabbinic exegesis has emptied the verse of its cultic content. An incident belonging to the realm of personal piety in a ritual context has been transformed so that it now exemplifies God’s demands on man in a socio-moral context.”[4]
What does Sarna mean when he writes that the verse was emptied of its cultic content? He might have the commentary of the Vilna Gaon (Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman) in mind who interpreted the Hebrew term for “tamarisk” as an acronym meaning eating, drinking, and lodging. In other words, commending Abraham for his hospitality, “symbolizing a new start for the world, to atone for the failures of Adam (eating), Noah (drinking), and Lot (incestuous relations.).”[5]
Essentially, the rabbis “cleaned up” the text. Uncomfortable with the potential allusion that Abraham performed a ritual very similar to pagan fertility rites, they expunged the narrative, leaving behind only the instance of the divine name (which, of course, could not be expunged). They converted the narrative into something theologically acceptable. The real story disappeared. And since all our modern translations follow the work of the rabbis, whatever Abraham did, and why he did it, is now forever concealed. Perhaps it isn’t so far fetched to think of Abraham as emerging from paganism, but the “corrected” text avoids this. Now the only question is: How often did this “correcting” process occur?
Topical Index: interpretation, ‘el ‘olam, theological correction, Genesis 21:33
[1] Nahum Sarna, “Genesis 21:33: A Study In the Development of a Biblical Text and Its Rabbinic Transformation,” in Studies in Biblical Interpretation, p. 222.
[2] Ibid., pp. 223-224.
[3] Ibid., p. 224.
[4] Ibid., p. 223, 226.
[5] Etz Hayim, Genesis 21:33
