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Jacob’s inconsiderate fondness for Joseph. Joseph’s dreams. His brothers’ envy. Joseph sold into Egypt.
Gen_37:1-36
2. Knobel regards Joseph’s history as having grown out of the original Elohistic text connected with a later revision (p. 288). He supposes, however, in this case, two halves, which, taken separately, have no significance. That Joseph was sold into Egypt, according to the supposed original text, can only be explained from the fact mentioned in the supposed additions, that he had incurred the hatred of his brethren by reason of his aspiring dreams. Reuben’s proposition to cast Joseph into the pit, and which aimed at his preservation, was not added until afterwards, it is said. Even Joseph’s later declaration: I was stolen from the country of the Hebrews, is regarded as making a difference. Delitzsch, too, adopts a combination of different elements, without, however, recognizing the contradictions raised by Knobel (p. 517). He presents, also, as a problem difficult of solution, the usage of the divine names in this last period of Genesis: In Genesis 37 no name of God occurs, but in Genesis 38, it is Jehovah that slays Judah’s sons, as also, in Genesis 39, it is Jehovah that blesses Joseph in Potiphar’s house, and in person; as recognized by Potiphar himself. Only in Gen_37:9 we find Elohim,—the name Jehovah not being here admissible. From Genesis 40 onward, the name Jehovah disappears. It occurs but once between Genesis 40, 50, as in Genesis 18, when Jacob uses it: “I have waited for thy salvation, Jehovah.” For different interpretations of this by Keil, Drechsler, Hengstenberg, Baumgarten, and Delitzsch, see Delitzsch, p. 515. The three last agree in this, that the author of Genesis, in the oft-repeated Elohim, wished here to mark more emphatically, by way of contrast, the later appearance of the Jehovah-period, Exo_3:6. This would, indeed, be a very artificial way of writing books. The riddle must find its solution in actual relations. The simple explanation is, that in the history of a Joseph, which stands entirely upon an Elohistic foundation, this name Elohim predominantly occurs. Joseph is the Solomon of the patriarchal times.
3. The generations of Jacob connect themselves with those of Esau. Delitzsch justly remarks, p. 511, that the representation which follows (Genesis 37 to Genesis 50), was intended to be, not a mere history of Joseph, but a history of Jacob in his sons. Otherwise Judah’s history, Genesis 38, would appear as an interpolation. The twelve sons of Jacob constitute Israel’s new seed. The latter fact, of course, has the stronger emphasis. The generations of Jacob are the history and successions of his posterity—that is, his living on in his posterity, just as Adam’s tholedoth, Gen_5:1, represent the history of Adam, not personally, but historically, in his descendants.
4. Joseph’s history is considered in a triple relation: as the history of the genesis of the Israelitish people in Egypt; as an example of a special providence, such as often brings good out of evil, as ex-emplified in the book of Job; and as a type of the fundamental law of God in guiding the elect from suffering to joy, from humiliation to exaltation—a law already indicated in the life of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but which, henceforth, develops itself more and more (especially in the history of David), to terminate, at last, in the life of Jesus, as presenting the very sublimity of the antithesis. Hence the appearance, in our history, of individual types representing the New-Testament history of Jesus, such as the jealousy and hatred of Joseph’s brethren, the fact of his being sold, the fulfilment of Joseph’s prophetic dreams in the very efforts intended to prevent his exaltation, the turning of his brothers’ wicked plot to the salvation of many, even of themselves, and of the house of Jacob, the spiritual sentence pronounced on the treachery of the brethren, the victory of pardoning love, Judah’s suretyship for Benjamin, his emulating Joseph in a spirit of redeeming resignation, Jacob’s joyful reviving on hearing of the life and glory of his favorite son, whom he had believed to be dead.
Concerning Israel’s genesis in Egypt, Delitzsch remarks: “According to a law of divine providences, to be found not only in the Old Testament, but also in the New (?), not the land of the promise, but a foreign country, is the place where the Church is born, and comes to maturity. This foreign country, to the Old-Testament Church, is the land of Egypt. To go before his people, to prepare a place for them, is Joseph’s high vocation. Sold into Egypt, he opens the way thither to the house of Jacob, and the same country where he matures to manhood, where he suffers in prison, and attains to glory, becomes, to his family, the land where it comes to the maturity of a nation,—the land of its servitude, and of its redemption. Thus far Joseph’s history is the overture of Jacob’s history—a type of the way of the Church; not of Jehovah only, but of Christ in his progress from humiliation to exaltation, from subjection to freedom, from sufferings to glory.” See Mat_2:15; Hos_11:1. Israel’s riches of election and endowment are to be developed by contact with different heathen nations, and especially with Egypt. Just as Christianity, the completed revelation of the new covenant, developed itself formally for the world, by its reciprocal intercourse with a Græco-Romanic culture, thus was it also with the faith of the old covenant in its reciprocal intercourse with the old Egyptian world-culture, as shown especially in the history of Joseph, Moses, and Solomon who became the son-in-law of one of the Pharaohs. More prominently does this appear, again, in the history of Alexandrian Judaism; in which, however, the interchange of influence with Egypt becomes, at the same time, one with that of the whole Orient, and of Greece.
The key of Joseph’s history, as a history of providence, is clearly found in the declaration made by him Gen_45:5-8, and Gen_50:20. The full explanation, however, of its significance, is found in the history of Christ as furnishing its perfect fulfilment. Permission of evil, counteraction and modification of evil, frustration of its tendency, its conversion into good, victory over evil, destruction of evil, and reconciliation of the evil themselves,—these are the forces of a movement here represented in its most concrete and most powerful relations. The evil is conspiracy, treachery, and a murderous plot against their innocent brother. The conversion of it is of the noblest kind. The plot to destroy Joseph is the occasion of his greatest glorification. But as God’s sentence against the trembling conscious sinner is changed into grace, so also the triumph of pardoning love overcoming hatred becomes conspicuous as a glorious omen in Joseph’s life.
“Inasmuch,” says Delitzsch, “as Israel’s history is a typical history of Christ, and Christ’s history the typical history of the Church, so is Joseph a type of Christ himself. What he suffered from his brethren, and which God’s decree turned to his own and his nation’s salvation, is a type of Christ’s sufferings, caused by his people, but which God’s decree turned to the salvation of the world, including, finally, the salvation of Israel itself.” Says Pascal (Pensées, ii. 9, 2): “Jesus Christ is typified in Joseph, the beloved of his father, sent by his father to his brethren, the innocent one sold by his brethren for twenty pieces of silver, and then becoming their Lord, their Saviour, the saviour of those who were aliens to Israel, the saviour of the world,—all which would not have been if they had not cherished the design of destroying him—if they had not sold and rejected him. Joseph, the innocent one, in prison with two malefactors—Jesus on the cross between two thieves; Joseph predicts favorably to the one, but death to the other; Jesus saves the one, whilst he leaves the other in condemnation. Thus has the Church ever regarded Joseph’s history.” Already is this intimated in the Gospels. What Pascal here says, and as is also held by the fathers, e.g., Prosper Aquitanus, de Promissionibus et Praedictionibus Dei, is but a brief statement of the pious thoughts of all believers, in the contemplation of the history. It is this which imparts to the wonderful typical light here presented its irresistible charm.
When, however, Joseph is made the exclusive centre of our history, and the patriarchal type of Christ (Kurtz, “History of the Old Testament,” i. p. 343), Keil presents, in opposition, some most important considerations. It is, indeed, no ground of difference (as presented by him), that Joseph became formally naturalized in Egypt; for Christ, too, was delivered to the heathen, and died out of the camp. Nor does it make any important difference that Joseph received no special revelations of God at the court of Pharaoh, as Daniel did at the court of Nebuchadnezzar; the gift of interpreting dreams he also, like Daniel, referred back to God. Of greater importance is the remark that Joseph is nowhere, in the Scriptures themselves, presented as a type of Christ; yet we must distinguish between verbal references and real relations, such as might be indicated in Zec_11:12, and in Christ’s declaration that one of his disciples should betray him. There is, however, a verbal reference in Stephen’s speech, Act_7:9. There is no mistaking the fact that the Messianic traces in our narrative are shared both by Joseph and Judah. Judah appears great and noble throughout the history of Joseph; the instance, however, in which he is willing to sacrifice himself to an unlimited servitude for Benjamin, makes him of equal dignity with Joseph. So in Abraham’s sacrifice, the Messianic typical is distributed between him and Isaac. Joseph’s glory is preëminently of a prophetic kind; the weight of a priestly voluntary self-sacrifice inclines more to the side of Judah. Benjamin, too, has his Messianic ray; for it is especially on his account that the brethren may appear before Joseph in a reconciling light. On Hiller’s “Typological Contemplation of Joseph,” see Keil, p. 242. Meinertzhagen, in his “Lectures on the Christology of the Old Testament” (p. 204), treats of the typical significance of Joseph with great fulness. It is also to be noted that ever afterwards Benjamin appears theocratically and geographically connected with Judah.
5. The disposition of Joseph’s history, and the settlement of the Israelites in Egypt, as well as its relation to the Hyksos of whom Josephus speaks (contra Apion, i. 14), in an extract from Manetho’s history, presents a question of great historical interest (see Delitzsch, p. 518). The extract concerning the Hyksos has a mythical look. Still darker are other things which Josephus gives us from Manetho and Chæremon (contra Ap., i. 26, 32). Different views: 1) The Hyksos and the Israelites are identical; so Manetho, Josephus, Hugo Grotius, Hofmann, Knobel (p. 301), and, in a modified form, Seyffarth, Uhlemann. 2) The Hyksos are distinct from the Israelites; they were another Shemitic tribe—Arabians, or Phœnicians; so Cunaeus, Scaliger, etc. This view, says Delitzsch, is now the prevailing one. So also Ewald, Lepsius, Saalschütz, jut with different combinations. On these see Delitzsch, p. 521. 3) The Hyksos were Scythians; so Champollion, Rossellini. The first view is opposed by the fact that the Israelites founded no dynasties in Egypt, as did the Hyksos; nor did they exist there under shepherd-kings, as the name Hyksos has been interpreted. Against the second view Delitzsch insists that the people of Egypt, into whose servitude Israel fell, appear as a people foreign to them, and by no means as one connected with them. The Shemitic idea, however, is so extended, that we cannot always suppose a theocratic element along with it. The most we can say is, that the Hyksos, who, no doubt, were a roving band of conquerors, came from Syria, or the countries lying north and east beyond Palestine. In the Egyptian tradition, their memory seems to have been so mingled with that of the Israelites, that it would seem almost impossible to separate the historical element from such a mixture. Since, however, the Israelitish history seems more obscured by that of the Hyksos than contradicted, it may be regarded as more probable that the latter came latest. The pressure of the Israelites upon the Canaanites, from the east, may have driven them in part to the south; and the weakening of Egypt by the destruction of Pharaoh and his army, forty years before, might have favored a conquest. The chronological adjustment, however, must be left to itself. For a fuller treatment of this subject, see E. Böhmer, “The First Book of the Thora” (Halle, 1862); appendix, p. 205, etc. According to Lepsius, the appearance of the Hyksos in Egypt preceded the history of Joseph. At all events, this dim tradition bears testimony to the Israelitish history in many particulars (e.g., that they founded Jerusalem in Judea). On the full confirmation of Joseph’s history by Greek historians and by Egyptian monuments, compare Delitzsch, p. 524, etc.; Hengstenberg, “The Pentateuch and Egypt,” Berlin, 1841.
6. The history of Israel’s settlement in Egypt extends through the sections that follow: 1) The corruption in Jacob’s house, the dispersion of his sons, the loss of Joseph (Genesis 38-39). 2) Joseph’s elevation, and the reconciliation and gathering of his brethren (Genesis 40-50). 3) Israel’s transplantation to Egypt (Gen_46:1 to Gen_47:26). 4) The keeping of the divine promise, and the longing of Israel to return home to Canaan (Gen_47:27–ch. 50).
1. The occasion (Gen_37:1-11).—In the land of Canaan.—It seems to have been made already his permanent home, but soon to assume a different appearance.—The generations (see above).—Joseph being seventeen years old.—A statement very important in respect both to the present occurrence and the future history. In Gen_41:46, he is mentioned as thirty years old. His sufferings, therefore, lasted about thirteen years. At this age of seventeen he became a shepherd with his brethren. Jacob did not send his favorite son too early to the herds; yet, though the favorite, he was to begin to serve below the rest, as a shepherd-boy. At this age, however, Joseph had great naïveness and simplicity. He therefore imprudently tells his dreams, like an innocent child. On the other hand, however, he was very sedate; he was not enticed, therefore, by the evil example of some of his brethren, but considered it his duty to inform his father.—And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah.—For the sons of Bilhah Rachel’s servant stood nearer to him, while those of Leah were most opposed. He brought to his father àú ãáúí øòä , translated by Keil, evil reports concerning them. A direct statement of their offences would doubtless have been differently expressed. They were an offence to those living in the vicinity. This determined him to inform his father, but it does not exclude a conviction of his own. It is inadmissible to refer this to definite sins (as, e.g., some have thought of unnatural sins). That the sons of the concubines surpassed the others in rude conduct, is easily understood. Joseph’s moral earnestness is, doubtless, the first stumbling-block to his brethren, whilst it strengthens his father in his good opinion. The beautiful robe was the second offence. It is called ëְּúֹðֶú ôַּñִּéí , “an outer garment of ends,” which extends, like a gown, to the hands and the ancles. The Septuagint, which Luther’s translation follows, renders it “a coat of many colors.” Comp. 2Sa_13:18. The common tunic extended only to the knees, and was without arms. Already this preference, which seemed to indicate that Jacob intended to give him the right of the first-born, aroused the hatred of his brethren. One who hates cannot greet heartily the one who is hated, nor talk with him frankly and peaceably. In addition to this, Joseph, by his dreams and presages (though not yet a prudent interpreter), was pouring oil upon the flames. At all events, the äðä (lo), as repeated in his narration, shows that he had a presentiment of something great. Both dreams are expressive of his future elevation. In Egypt he becomes the fortunate sheaf-binder whose sheaf “stood up” during the famine. The second dream confirms the first, whilst presenting the further thought: even the sun and moon—that is, according to Jacob’s interpretation, even his father and his mother—were to bow before him. Rachel died some time before this. On this account the word mother has been referred to Bilhah, or to Benjamin as representing Rachel, or else to Leah. The brethren now hated him the more, not merely as recognizing in his dreams the suggestions of ambition, but with a mingled feeling, in which there was not wanting a presentiment of his possible exaltation—as their declaration, Gen_37:20, betrays. In Jacob’s rebuke we perceive also mingled feelings. There is dissent from Joseph’s apparently pretentious prospects, a fatherly regard toward the mortified brethren, yet, withal, a deeper presentiment, that caused him to keep these words of Joseph in his heart, as Mary did those of the shepherds. As the naïvete of the shepherd-boy was evidence of the truthfulness of these dreams, so the result testifies to the higher origin of a divine communication, conditioned, indeed, by the hopefully presageful life of Joseph. These dreams were probably intended to sustain Joseph during his thirteen years of wretchedness, and, at the same time, to prepare him to be an interpreter. The Zodiac, as here brought in by Knobel, has no significance, nor the custom of placing a number of sheaves together.
2. The opportunity and the plot of murder (Gen_37:12-20).—In Shechem.—There is no ground for supposing another Shechem, as some have done, on account of what had formerly occurred there. It is more likely that Jacob’s sons courageously returned to the occupation of the parcel of land formerly acquired by them. This very circumstance, however, may have so excited the anxiety of the cautious parent that he sent Joseph after them. That Joseph could have lost his way at Shechem is easily explained, since he was so young when his father lived there.—In Dothan—The Septuagint has ÄùèáåÀì , Jdt_4:6; Jdt_7:3; Jdt_8:3; ÄùèáÀì . 2Ki_6:13, Dothan. It was a place above Samaria, towards the plain of Jezreel, according to Josephus and Hieronymus. “Thus it was found by Robinson and Smith in their journey of 1852, and also by Van de Velde, in the southeast part of the plain of Jabud, west of Genin. It is a beautiful green dell, always called Dothan, at whose south foot a fountain rises.” Delitzsch. Through the plain of Tell-Dothan a highway passes from the northwest to Ramleh and Egypt.—They conspired against him.—That Reuben and Judah were not concerned in this, is plain from what follows.—This dreamer cometh.—Spoken contemptuously—master of dreams, dream-man. The word äַìָּæֶä does not express contempt of itself, as is seen from Gen_24:65, the only other place in which it occurs. It denotes something unexpected and remarkable.—Into some pit.—Cisterns (see Winer: wells).—And we shall see.—They thought by their fratricide surely to frustrate his exaltation—a proof that his dreams alarmed them; but by this very deed, as controlled by God’s providence, they bring it about.
3. Reuben’s artful attempt at saving (Gen_37:21-24). The text states directly that Reuben made his proposition in order to save Joseph. Knobel, by a frivolous criticism, would foist a contradiction upon the text, namely, that Reuben made the proposition in order to let him perish in the pit; since a bloodless destruction of life seems, to have been regarded as less criminal than a direct killing. But, then, the Reviser must have imparted to Reuben’s proposition a different interpretation, by means of an addition. Reuben, it is true, had to express himself in such a way that the brothers might infer his intention to let him perish in the pit; but this was the only way to gain their consent.—They stripped Joseph out of his coat.—The object of their jealousy and their wrath.—And the pit was empty.—So that he did not perish. His cries for mercy they remembered many years afterwards (Gen_41:21).
4. Judah’s bold attempt to save him (Gen_37:25-27).—And they sat down.—Through this apparent insensibility their inward agony is betrayed; it appears in their agitated looking out, so that they espy the Ishmaelites already at a great distance.—And behold, a company of Ishmaelites.—A caravan, àֹøְçָä (Job_6:19). “This caravan (as Robinson’s description shows) had crossed the Jordan at Beisan, and followed the highway that led from Beisan and Zerin to Ramleh and Egypt, entering the plain of Dothan west of Genin.” Delitzsch. In Gen_37:25; Gen_37:27-28, the merchants are called Ishmaelites, whilst in the first part of Gen_37:28 they are styled Midianites, and in Gen_37:36 Medanites. Knobel, of course, regards them as different traditions (p. 293). Gen_37:28, however, would seem to tell us that the Ishmaelites were the proprietors of the caravan, which was made up, for the most part, of Midianitish people. In a similar manner, probably, as Esau made a number of the Horites subject to him, so had the Ishmaelites also brought under them a number of the Midianites. One hundred and fifty years, the time that had elapsed since Ishmael’s departure from Abraham, would give a sufficient increase for this (see Keil, p. 244). As merchants, they were transporting costly products of their country to Egypt. Gum-tragacanth is found in Syria; the balm of Gilead was especially renowned, and was sold to Phœnicia and Egypt; ladanum (myrrh), or the fragrant rose of the cistus, is found in Arabia and Syria, as well as in Palestine (see Schubert, iii. p. 114 and 174). Concerning the cisterns, or the artificially prepared reservoirs of rain-water, see the Dictionaries and geographical works. They might be full of water, or have mire at the bottom, or be entirely dry. They were frequently used as prisons (see Jer_38:6; Jer_40:15). Schröder: “On his way to Damascus, Robinson found Khân Jubb Jûsuf (a kind of inn), the khan of Joseph’s pit, so called after a well connected with it, and which for a long time, both among Christians and Mohammedans, was regarded as the cistern into which Joseph was thrown.”—And Judah said.—“Then Judah began to use the language of a hypocritical self-interest,” says Delitzsch. This, however, seems to be not at all justified by Judah’s after-history. It must be presupposed that Judah was unacquainted with Reuben’s intention. The brethren were so much excited that Judah alone could not have hoped to rescue Joseph from their hand. The ferocity, especially, of Simeon and Levi, is known to us from former history. Judah, therefore, could think no otherwise than that Joseph must die from hunger in the pit. As in opposition to this, therefore, and not as a counteraction of Reuben’s attempt at deliverance, is his proposal to be judged. He lived still, though a slave. There was a possibility of his becoming free. He might make his escape by the caravan routes that passed south through his home. Reuben, in his tenderness, had made a subtle attempt to save him. In the bolder policy of Judah we see that subtle attempt crossed by one more daring. No doubt both had some ill-feeling towards Joseph, and were, therefore, not capable of a mutual and open understanding. That both, however, preserved a better conscience than the rest, is evident from the later history. The unity of our story is not disturbed by Knobel’s remark, “that a further tradition is given, Euseb. Prœp. Evang., ix. 23, to the effect that, in order to escape the snares of his brethren, Joseph besought Arabians, who were near, to take him along with them to Egypt; which they did; so that, in this way, are the patriarchs still more exculpated.” What Joseph says of himself afterwards, that he was stolen out of the land of the Hebrews (Gen_40:15), does not contradict our narration. Was he to tell to the Egyptians the crime of his brethren?
5. Gen_37:28-32. The crime, the beginning of mourning, and the concealment of the guilt.—Twenty pieces of silver.—Comp. Gen_20:16. Twenty shekels of silver was the compensation that Moses appointed for a boy from five to twenty years old (Lev_27:5), whilst the average price of a slave was thirty shekels (Exo_21:32).—And Reuben returned unto the pit.—His absence may easily be accounted for: it was impossible for him to eat with his brethren in his then state of mind; and he probably resorted to solitude to think out a plan of deliverance—And he rent his clothes.—The later custom (Mat_26:65) originally sprung from vivid emotions of sorrow,—the rending as an expression of inward distraction. Afterwards came this rending of garments upon the others (Gen_44:13).—And I, whither shall I go?—Not only as the first-born was he especially responsible for the younger brother, but his tender feelings for him, and for the unhappy father, made him the bearer of the agony of the guilty confederacy; and this to such a degree that he knew not what to do.—And they took Joseph’s coat.—One transgression gives birth to another. With the consciousness that tried to conceal their guilt, there mingles the old grudge concerning the coat of many colors, which here turns itself even against the father. Doubtless, in some degree, they thought themselves justified in the thought that the father had given them cause of irritation by providing such a coat for Joseph. Reuben and Judah are, moreover, burdened by the ban of silence.
6. Jacob’s deep grief, and Joseph’s apparent loss (Gen_37:33-36).—It is my son’s coat.—Their deception succeeded. In his agony he does not discover the fraud; the sight of the blood-dyed garment led him to conclude: Surely an evil beast hath torn Joseph, and devoured him.—Sackcloth.—The sign of the deepest mourning (see Winer: Trauer-sack).—And mourned for his son.—Retaining also his garment of mourning.—And all his sons.—The criminals as comforters!—And all his daughters.—From this there arises the probability that Jacob had other daughters than Dinah, though the daughters-in-law may be so called.—For I will go down.—The ëִּé is elliptical, implying, nothing can comfort me, for, etc.—Mourning unto my son.—There is, doubtless, something more here than grief merely for the loss; there is also self-reproach for having exposed the child to such danger.—Into the grave (sheol).—In this mournful mood of Jacob does this word sheol first occur. It was not the world beyond the grave considered as the gathering to the fathers, but the dark night of death and mourning. There are various derivations of this word. One that easily suggests itself is that which marks it from ùָׁàַì , to demand—that place which inexorably demands all men back (Pro_30:15; Isa_5:14; Heb_2:5). [See Excursus below, especially p. 586 sq.—T. L.] Gen_37:36. The word ñָøִéí , according to its original significance, denotes an eunuch; its later and more general interpretation is courtier.—Captain of the guard.—Literally a slayer, that is, an executioner (see 2Ki_25:8; Jer_39:9). For particulars, see Delitzsch, p. 531. On the chronology as connected with the remark that Joseph was sold when he was seventeen years old, see also Delitzsch, p. 532. Joseph’s history here suffers an interruption by the insertion of an incident in the life of Judah. Ch. 38 Delitzsch ascribes this to literary art on the part of the author, but of that we may doubt. It is, of itself, just the time that we should expect to learn something more about Judah.
[Note on Gen_37:35. The Primitive Conception of Sheol.—This is the first place in which the word occurs, and it is very important to trace, as far as we can, the earliest conception, or rather emotion, out of which it arose. “I will go down to my son mourning to Sheol,”—towards Sheol, or, on the way to Sheol,—the reference being to the decline of life terminating in that unknown state, place, or condition of being, so called. One thing is clear: it was not a state of not-being, if we may use so paradoxical an expression. Jacob was going to his son; he was still his son; there is yet a tie between him and his father; he is still spoken of as a personality; he is still regarded as having a being somehow, and somewhere. Compare 2Sa_12:23, àֲðִé äֹìֵêְ àֵìָéå , “I am going to him, but he shall not return to me.” The him and the me in this case, like the I and the my son in Genesis, are alike personal. In the earliest language, where all is hearty, such use of the pronoun could have been no unmeaning figure. The being of the one who has disappeared is no less real than that of the one who remains still seen, still found, to use the Shemitic term for existence, or out-being, as a known and visible state (see note, p. 273). The LXX have rendered it here åἰò ̔́ Áäïõ , into Hades; the Vulgate, ad filium meum in infernum. It was not to his son in his grave, for Joseph had no grave. His body was supposed to be lying somewhere in the desert, or torn in pieces, or carried off, by the wild beasts (see Gen_37:33). To resolve it all into figurative expressions for the grave would be simply carrying our meaningless modern rhetoric into ancient forms of speech employed, in their first use, not for the reflex painting, but for the very utterance of emotional conceptions. However indefinite they may be, they are too mournfully real to admit of any such explanations. Looking at it steadily from this primitive standpoint, we are compelled to say, that an undoubting conviction of personal extinction at death, leaving nothing but a dismembered, decomposing body, now belonging to no one, would never have given rise to such language. The mere conception of the grave, as a place of burial, is too narrow for it. It, alone, would have destroyed the idea in its germ, rather than have given origin and expansion to it. The fact, too, that they had a well-known word for the grave, as a confined place of deposit for the body ( àֲçֻæַּú ÷ֶáֶø , a possession, or property, of a grave, see Gen_23:9), shows that this other name, and this other conception, were not dependent upon it, nor derived from it.
The older lexicographers and commentators generally derived the word ùְׁàåֹì (Sheol) from ùָׁàַì (Sha-al), to ask, inquire, etc. This is a very easy derivation, so far as form is concerned; and why is it not correct? In any way the sense deduced will seem near, or far-fetched, according to our preconceptions in respect to that earliest view of extinct or continued being. Gesenius rejects it, maintaining that ùְׁàåֹì is for ùְׁòåֹì , and means cavity; hence a subterranean region, etc. He refers to ùֹׁòַì , hollow of the hand, or fist, Isa_40:12; 1Ki_20:10; Eze_13:19; and ùׁåּòָì , the name for fox or jackal, who digs holes in the earth,—this being all that can be found of any other use of the supposed root from which comes this most ancient word, so full of some most solemn significance. There is a reference, also, to the German hölle, or the general term of the northern nations (Gothic, Scandinavian, Saxon), denoting hole, or cavity; though this is the very question, whether the northern conception is not a secondary one, connected with that later thought of penal confinement which was never separable from the Saxon hell,—a sense-limitation, in fact, of the more indefinite and more spiritual notion primarily presented by the Greek Hades, and which furnishes the true parallel to the early Hebrew Sheol. Fürst has the same view as Gesenius. To make ùְׁàåֹì and ùְׁòåֹì equivalents, etymologically, there is supposed to be an interchange of à and ò , a thing quite common in the later Syriac, but rare in the Hebrew, especially the earlier writings, and which would be cited as a mark recentioris Hebraismi, if the rationalistic argument, at any time, required it. The ò has ever kept its place most tenaciously in the Arabic, as shown by Robinson in the numerous proper names of places in which it remains unchanged to this day. So it was, doubtless, in the most early Shemitic, though in the Syriac it became afterwards much weakened through the antipathetic Greek and Roman influence upon that language, and so, frequently passed into the more easily pronounced à . It is improbable that this should have taken place in the most ancient stage of the language, or at the time of the first occurrence of this word in the biblical writings. Gesenius would give to ùָׁàִì , too, the supposititious primary sense of digging, to make it the ground of the secondary idea of search or inquiry; but this is not the primary or predominant conception of ùàì ; it is always that of interrogation, like the Greek ἐñùôÜù , or of demand, like áἰôÝù , ever implying speech, instead of the positive act of search, such as is denoted by the Hebrew ç÷ø , to explore. Subsequent lexicographers and commentators have generally followed Gesenius, who seems to pride himself upon this discovery (see Robinson: “Lex. N. Test.” on the word Hades). Of the older mode of derivation he says: “Prior de etymo conjectura vix memoratu digna est.” By some it would be regarded as betraying a deficiency in Hebrew learning to think of supporting an etymology so contemptuously rejected. And yet it has claims that should not be lightly given up, especially as they are so intimately connected with the important inquiry in respect to the first conception of those who first used the word. “Was this, primarily, a thought of locality, however wide or narrow it may have been, or did the space-notion, which undoubtedly prevailed afterwards, come from an earlier thought, or state of soul rather, more closely allied to feeling than to any positive idea? This conception of locality in the earth came in very early; it grew naturally from something before it; but was it first of all? Lowth, Herder, etc., are, doubtless, correct in the representations they give of the Hebrew Sheol, as an imagined subterranean residence of the dead, and this is confirmed by later expressions we find in the Psalms and elsewhere, such as “going down to the pit” (compare éåֹøְãֵé áåֹø and similar language, Psa_28:1; Psa_30:4; Psa_88:5; Isa_14:19; Isa_38:10, etc.); yet still there is the best of reasons for believing that what may be called the emotional or ejaculatory conception was earlier than this, and that the local was the form it took when it passed from an emotion to a speculative thought. From what source, then, in this earlier stage, could the name more naturally have come than from the primitive significance of that word ùàì , which, in the Arabic ÓÇُá , and everywhere in the Shemitic family, has this one old sense of appealing interrogation,—first, simple inquiry, secondly, the idea of demand? The error of the older etymologists, then, consisted, not in making it from ùàì , but in connecting it with this secondary idea, and so referring it to Sheol itself as demanding, instead of the mourning, sighing survivors asking after the dead. They supposed it was called Sheol from its rapacity, or unsatiableness, ever claiming its victims,—a thought, indeed, common in the early language of mourning, but having too much of tropical artifice to be the very earliest. It belongs to that later stage in which language is employed, retroactively, to awaken or intensify emotion, instead of being its gushing, irrepressible utterance. In support of this view, the text constantly cited, as the standard one, was Pro_30:16, ùְׁàåֹì -- ìֹà ùָׂáְòָä ìֹà àָîְøָä äåֹï , Sheol that is never satisfied, that never says, enough. See the old commentary of Martin Geier on the book of Proverbs. Corresponding to this is the manner in which Homer speaks of Hades, and its vast population:
êëõôὰ
The disappearance of Enoch from the earth was stranger than that of the ordinary death, but gave rise to the same feeling of inquiry, only in a more intensive degree. “He was not found,” ïὐ÷ åὑñßóêåôï , says the LXX, and this gives the real meaning of the Hebrew àֵéðֶëּåּ , not denoting non-existence, for that would be directly contrary to what follows, but that he was nowhere to be found on earth.
Thus regarded, it is easy to see how the idea of some locality would soon attach itself to the primitive emotional conception, and in time become so predominant that the older germ of thought, that was in the etymology, would almost wholly disappear. Still the spirit of the word, its geist or ghost, to use the more emphatic German or Saxon, long haunts it after the conception has changed so as to receive into it more of the local and definite. Trench has shown how tenacious is this root-sense of old words, preserving them, like some guardian genius, from misusage and misapplication, ages after it has ceased to be directly conceptual, or to be known at all, except to the antiquarian philologist. Thus, although the cavernous or subterranean idea had become prominent in the Psalms and elsewhere, this old spirit of the word still hovers about it in all such passages; we still seem to hear the sighing weayyo; there yet lingers in the car the plaintive sheolah, denoting the intense looking into the world unknown, the anxious listening to which no answering voice is returned.
That Sheol, in its primary sense, did not mean the grave, and in fact had no etymological association with it, is shown by the fact, already mentioned, that there was a distinct word for the latter, of still earlier occurrence in the Scriptures, common in all the Shemitic languages, and presenting the definite primary conception of digging, or excavation ( ÷áø , kbr, krb, âøá , ëøá , grb, grub, grav). There was no room here for expansion into the greater thought. The Egyptian embalming, too, to one who attentively considers it, will appear still less favorable. It was a dry and rigid memorial of death, far less suggestive of continued being, somehow and somewhere, than the flowing of the body into nature through decomposition in the grave, or its dispersion by fire into the prime elements of its organization. In the supposed case, however, of Joseph’s torn and dismembered corpse, there was nothing from any of these sources to aid the conception. Yet Jacob held on to it: I will go mourning to my son, àֶì áְּðִé , not òַì , or àֶì for òַì , on account of my son, as some would take it. Had Joseph been lying by the side of his mother in the field near Bethlehem Ephratah, or with Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac and Rebekah, in the cave of Machpelah, or in some Egyptian sarcophagus, embalmed with costliest spices and wrapped in aromatic linen, the idea of his unbroken personality would have been no more vivid, Joseph himself (his very ipse) would have been no nearer, or more real, to the mourning father, than as he thought of his body lying mangled in the wilderness, or borne by rapacious birds to the supposed four corners of the earth. I will go to my son mourning, sheolah ( ùְׁàֹìָä , with ä of direction), Sheol-ward,—on the way to the unknown land.
This view of Sheol is strongly corroborated by the parallel etymology, and the parallel connection of ideas we find in the origin and use of the Greek Hades. Some would seek its primary meaning elsewhere, but it is clearly Greek, and no derivation is more obvious than the one given long ago, and which would make this word ̔́ Áéäçò (Homeric ’ ÁÀäçò , with the mild aspirate) from á privative and ἰäåῖí to see. We have the very word as an adjective, with this meaning of invisible or unseen, Hesiod: “Shield of Hercules,” 477. It denotes, then, the unseen world, carrying the idea of disappearance, and yet of continued being in some state unknown. The analogy between it and the Hebrew word is perfect. So is the parallelism, all the more striking, we may say, from the fact that in the two languages the appeal is to two different senses. In the one, it is the eye peering into the dark; in the other, it is the ear intently listening to the silence. Both give rise to the same question: Where is he? whither has he gone? and both seem to imply with equal emphasis that the one unseen and unheard yet really is. Sometimes a derivative from the same root, and of the same combination, is joined with Hades to make the meaning intensive, as in the “Ajax” of Sophocles, Genesis 607:
ôὸí ἀðüôñïðïí ἀÀäçëïí ̔́ Áéäáí —
The awful, unseen Hades.
From this use has come the adjective ἀÀäéïò , rendered eternal, but having this meaning from the association of ideas (the Hadean, the everlasting), since it is not etymologically connected with áἰþí (see Judges 6, äåóìïῖò ἀúäßïéò , where the two conceptions seem to unite). In truth, there is a close connection between these two sets of words (’ ÁÀäçò and áἰþí , òåֹìָí and ùàåì ), one ever suggesting the other,—“the things that are seen are temporal (belong to time), the things that are unseen are eternal.” Hence we have in Greek the same idiom, in respect to Hades, that we have in Hebrew in relation to Olam ( òåֹìָí ), the counterpart of áἰþí . Thus, in the former language we have the expressions, ïἶêïò ̔́ Áéäïõ — äüìïò ̔́ Áéäïõ , etc., corresponding exactly to the Hebrew áֵּéú òåֹìָí , the house of eternity, poorly rendered his long home, Ecc_12:5. Compare the ïἰêßáí áἰþíéïí , the “house eternal,” 2Co_5:1. Compare also Xenophon’sAgesilaus, at the close, where it is said of the Spartan king, ôὴí ἀÀäéïí ïἴêçóéí êáôçãÜãåôï , “he was brought back, like one who had been away, to his eternal home.” Sec, too, a very remarkable passage, Diodorus Siculus, lib. i. Gen 51, respecting the belief of the most ancient Egyptians: “The habitations of the living they call inns, or lodging-places, êáôáëýóåéò , since we dwell in them so short a time, but those of the dead they style ïἴêïõò ἀúäßïõò , everlasting abodes, as residing in them forever, ôὸí ἄðåéñïí ἀéῶíá .” See also Pareau: De Jobi Notitiis, etc., on the early Arabian belief, p. 27.
Why should not Jacob have had the idea as well as these most ancient Egyptians? That his thought was more indefinite, that it had less of circumstance and locality, less imagery every way, than the Greek and Egyptian fancy gave it, only proves its higher purity as a divine hope, a sublime act of faith, rather than a poetical picturing, or a speculative dogma. The less it assumed to know, or even to imagine, showed its stronger trust in the unseen world as an assured reality, but dependent solely for its clearer revelation on the unseen God. The faith was all the stronger, the less the aid it received from the sense or the imagination. It was grounded on the surer rock of the “everlasting covenant” made with the fathers, though in it not a word was said directly of a future life. “The days of the years of my pil grimage,” says Jacob. He was “a sojourner upon earth as his fathers before him.” The language has no meaning except as pointing to a home, an ἀÀäéïí ïἴêçóéí , an eternal habitation; whether in Sheol, or through Sheol, was not known. It was enough that it was a return unto God, “his people’s dwelling-place ( îָòåֹï ìָðåּ , see Psa_90:1) in all generations.” It was, in some way, a “living unto him,” however they might disappear from ea