Revelation, how much of the spoken Revelation they hear. About none of these concerns does the Pentateuch speak clearly.
And as that is the case not only as regards the two chapters discussed above, but, as will be shown, as regards other sections chosen at random, and as could be shown, as regards almost every section of the Pentateuch, mysterium is a significant, perhaps even a pervasive, motif in the Pentateuch. The two chapters discussed, for example, are part of a single dramatic unit—the Revelation, and the building of the Tabernacle—that occupies the fifty-seven chapters from Exodus 19 to Numbers 9, each of them full of the sorts of concerns relating to sacred history discussed above (and further complicated by concerns, not yet discussed, relating to the exposition of law). And as that dramatic unit is but one of the many, equally complicated, that constitute the Pentateuch, affirming that, to some significant extent, perhaps even typically, the plain meaning of the text is impossible to establish to a certainty is, in the opinion of the present study, an indispensable prerequisite to a productive encounter with it.
That affirmation must be made equally by secular scholars and by traditionalists. But, as noted, it is much more difficult for traditionalists to make, because much more is at stake for them. Secular scholars undertake to study a text similar in kind to all others. Their intent is entirely intellectual: to understand it. Difficult concerns do not surprise them, given their presumptions about how the text evolved. And whether the concerns in fact defy comprehension remains for them an open question, to be answered as knowledge in a variety of relevant disciplines advances. Traditionalists, by contrast, undertake to study the only book ever written by their God, and therefore the only book perforce perfect, transferred from, so to speak, His head to His Chosen People in an instant about which all of history pivots, and during which a sacred history was narrated and a comprehensive code of conduct was expounded. Their intention is essentially theological: to understand the history He directs, and the system of law He mandated, primarily to the Jews, His Chosen People. To the extent that puzzling concerns exist, they cannot understand their history, or how to live. Thus, a sense of seriousness, urgency and anxiety perforce absent from secular scholarship attends their study of the text in general, in proportion as the puzzling concerns prove impervious to understanding.
And that many of them do prove impervious to it is a fact, from which, for traditionalism, there is no refuge. Not all puzzling concerns in the Pentateuch are beyond understanding. But against the significant number at least that are not even two theological dicta invoked, often, and almost formulaically, afford protection. The dictum that many plain meanings of a narrative fact may co-exist (shivim panim la’torah) must mean something metaphorically, as must the related dictum that interpretations that seem contradictory may be true (eilu ve’eilu divrei elokim chayim). But neither dictum can have literal meaning when a concern regarding historical fact is studied. For example, the ram’s horn that signals Mount Sinai may once again be approached cannot be sounded by God when the spoken Revelation ends and by Moses when he returns from the second, or third, of his forty-day stays on the mountain. (Nor, as will be shown, can either dictum have literal meaning when irreconcilable interpretations of the plain meaning of a law are studied.)
Whatever the metaphoric meaning of the two dicta, concerns related to sacred history (and, as will be shown, concerns related to law) that are impervious to understanding constitute a significant, perhaps even a pervasive, motif in the Pentateuch. And that inescapable fact mandates three tasks. The fact must be documented, as regards both sacred history and law. The response the fact compels must be underscored, and discussed effectively enough so that, as a theological and practical matter, traditionalists consider it seriously. And that a counter-response antithetical to traditionalism perforce produces nothing of value to it must be demonstrated.
The first of the three tasks, begun in the analysis above of the Nineteenth and Twentieth chapters of Exodus, continues below, in further discussions of sacred history. Then, in turn, that the motif in the sacred history in the Pentateuch is, at the minimum, significant, and perhaps even pervasive, also in the codex it mandates is demonstrated, the response the fact compels is underscored, and the futility of the counter-response is discussed.
The apparent clarity with which the history of Joseph is narrated masks a wide variety of concerns that make it to some significant degree, perhaps even typically, impossible to understand what happens in two episodes to be discussed, and why Joseph and his brothers act as they do.
The episodes are contained in Genesis 37:1-36, and in 42:1-38. The first recounts the sale of Joseph into slavery in Egypt; the second recounts the first of the journeys into Egypt of his brothers to purchase food, and its aftermath.
The verse that introduces Joseph, 37:2, is problematic for a number of reasons, one of them obscured by Kaplan’s legitimate translation:
These are the chronicles of Jacob: Joseph was 17 years old. As a lad, he would tend the sheep with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. Joseph brought his father a bad report about them.
A more awkward, but more revealing, translation underscores that it is not possible to integrate into the second sentence the clause highlighted below:
These are the chronicles of Jacob: Joseph, at 17 years old, would tend the sheep with his brothers, and he was a lad with the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. Joseph brought his father a bad report about them.
The highlighted clause may mean that Joseph usually keeps company with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, rather than with his other brothers, all of them except Benjamin and Joseph, the sons of their dead mother, Rachel, the sons of Leah. But if that is the case, the plain meaning of the verse is that Joseph tends the sheep with all of his brothers, and brings his father a bad report about all of them, rather than, as Kaplan’s translation seems to indicate, that he tends the sheep only with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, and brings the bad report only about them. However, if the Hebrew words “and he was a lad” are detached, as they can be, from the rest of the italicized clause, Kaplan’s translation conveys the plain meaning of the verse, because it is then legitimate to regard “the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives” as in apposition to “with his brothers.” But if the words are detached, they can be moved only to the vicinity of “Joseph was 17 years old,” where they seem (as in Kaplan’s translation)to be redundant, because a boy of seventeen is obviously “a lad.”
The opening words of 37:2, and the nature of the report Joseph brings to his father, are also problematic.
The opening words—“These are the chronicles of Jacob”—are puzzling, because they introduce the chronicles not of Jacob, but of Joseph; and especially puzzling when compared to the opening words of 36:1—“These are the chronicles of Esau, also known as Edom”—that introduce the long detailed chronicle of Jacob’s brother that immediately precedes 37:2.
What the “bad report” contains is not specified. And whether the brothers know it exists, or what it contains, is not clear.
Why 37:3 asserts that Jacob “loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he was the child of his old age” is not clear, because, as Meam Loez notes, the child of his old age is Benjamin, because Naftali, Gad, and Issachar are only about a year older than Joseph, because Zebulun and Joseph are almost the same age (or, as one tradition asserts, Zebulun is younger than Joseph), and because all of the brothers seem to have been born within six or seven years.
If the brothers know about the “bad report,” it is not clear why “they began to hate” Joseph in 37:4 only because Jacob loves him more than he loves them, rather than also because they resent the report. (Nor is it clear how many of them might be expected to resent the report, because, as noted, it is not clear how many of them the report censures.)
Because
