Notes 11. A misunderstanding (12:10 - 13:4)

SYNOPSIS: Abram and his wife Sarai sojourn in Egypt because of a famine. Saray is mistaken for his sister and taken into the Pharaoh's court, and Abram acquires much livestock. The Pharaoh later realises that they are married, but the situation is clarified and Abram is sent away with all his possessions. Abram and his whole household go back to Canaan. He returns to the altar he had built at the beginning and worships God.

• Text of the passage in Nawat

See my general comments on the episode in this post.

12:10 wayyéred avram mitzráyma
By a consistent convention, Canaan was considered "up" and Egypt was "down", so 'to go' in the Canaan-to-Egypt direction is expressed by the verb y-r-d 'descend', and in the opposite direction by ‛-l-h 'ascend.' Acc. to Speiser this is "because of the relative elevations of the two countries." Hence lit. 'Abram went down to Egypt' here, but the natural translation in English is simply 'Abram went to Egypt.'

lagur sham
The verb g-w-r 'to sojourn' connotes staying somewhere temporarily or transitionally; acc. to Speiser it "describes residence that is limited in duration, privileges, or both." It doesn't have an exact translation, but means to stay in a place or country that is not one's own. Another place where גור is used is in ch. 19 when the local inhabitants of Sodom speak of Lot as somebody who ba lagur 'has come as an alien' and therefore does not have the rights of a resident. In ch. 21 we read (21:34, JPS): wayyágor avraham b'éretz p'lishtim yamim rabbim 'and Abraham resided in the land of the Philistines a long time' which presupposes that Abram was not a Philistine, no matter how long he stayed there! You might be a ger 'stranger' even when staying with relatives: in 32:5 Jacob will say ‛im lavan gárti 'I stayed with Laban.' Apparently the patriarchs never got their immigration papers in order in Canaan, and even at Mamre in Hebron their status was that of a temporary resident, so when in ch. 35 Jacob goes to his father Isaac's house there, we read (35:27): wayyavo ya‛aqov el yitzxaq aviw mamre qiryat ha'arba‛ hu xevron asher gar sham avraham w'yitzxaq '...where Abraham and Isaac had sojourned.' Last but not least, let us recall that God told Abraham (15:13): ger yihye zar‛akha b'éretz lo lahem 'your offspring shall be strangers (ger) in a land not theirs.'

12:13  imri na axoti att
The particle na following an imperative such as imri 'say! (fem. sing.)' changes it from a command to an insistent but polite request: 'I beg you to say.' It is quite common in Gen., e.g. (13:9) hippared na me‛alay. It does not necessarily imply self-abasement: God uses it when he tells Abraham (15:5) habbet na hasshamáyma... and (22:2) qax na et binkha... With negative requests it is placed between the negator al and the verb, e.g. (13:8) al na t'hi... Note also the use of indirect speech without a complementizer, as here: 'Please say you are my sister.'

w'xayta nafshi
Sometimes as here nafshi 'my soul' is used in BH to signify 'I'. So also in 19:20, 27:4, 27:25, 32:31 and 49:6.

12:15 par'o

The Egyptian hieroglyphs
for pr ˤ3 'great house'
from which the
name Pharaoh is
said to be derived

The title of the king of Egypt, Pharaoh, is said to come from the Egyptian term pr ˤ3 meaning 'great house'. Initially referring to the palace, it eventually came to refer to the ruler.

sare far‛o
Trad. sar is  glossed 'prince', but acc. to Speiser this phrase means 'the courtiers.'

12:16 ug'mallim
All the commentaries point out that the mention of camels here and elsewhere in Gen. (notably ch. 24) appears to be an anachronism as they were not introduced into the area until much later than the period referred to here. Speiser is slightly less categorical: "The author may thus be guilty of an anachronism. Alternatively the camel may have come into limited use at an earlier time (as did also the horse), but required centuries before it ceased to be a luxury."

waxamorim wa‛avadim ushfaxot w'atonot...
Another common observation is the strangeness of the order in which the items of Abram's acquired wealth are listed: '[male] asses, male and female slaves, she-asses...' What are the slaves doing between the male asses and the female asses?

12:18 ma zot asíta li
Although ma is 'what?' and zot is 'this (fem. sing.)', here zot does not have demonstrative force but just serves to put ma in emphatic focus: 'What (is it that) you have done to me?', or perhaps we might wish to think of it as something like 'What the blazes have you done to me?!' It is a rhetorical question, like when God asked the serpent in 3:13 ma zot ‛asíta.

13:1 wayyá‛al avram mimmitzráyim
See the note above on 12:10 concerning the use of y-r-d and ‛-l-h.

13:2 bakkésef uvazzahav
In days before the advent of banking, on account of their portability, silver and gold were useful forms of wealth as opposed, for example, to real estate for social groups or individuals who are not permanently attached to a single place.

13:3 l'massa‛aw minnégev w‛ad bet el
This must mean: 'by stages from the south/Negeb as far [north] as Bethel,' following Speiser's gloss of l'massa‛aw (massa‛ is a noun formed from the verb root n-s-‛ 'to start out', whence 'to travel').