- Text of the passage in Nawat
Etymologically, there is not much to choose between "Sarai" and "Sarah"; they are linguistic variants of the same name, which is the feminine form derived from sar which may mean (CHALOT, EK) 'official, chief, ruler, leader, captain, general, prince, nobleman etc.' As far as I know, the female version of this can mean the same things, referring to a woman, hence not necessarily just 'princess', which is the "meaning" so often given for the name; besides, we might wish to bear in mind that prince (and so also princess) itself is not always an expression of royalty, given that it comes from Lat. princeps, principis, but merely means an important person originally (notice the corresponding adjective is principalis 'principal'), and it might be in this broader sense that it is most appropriate to consider it a correct gloss of sar; thus there is no need to go along with the notion that she had been any kind of royalty or "queen". In any case, whatever the original meaning of the name, saray is an archaic feminine derivative and sara is the updated, regularized version of the same thing. Thus the name change effected in this verse is seemingly not such a big deal (but then neither is the change from avram to avraham, see my note on 17:4-5). On purely linguistic grounds, what this looks like more than anything else is a situation, perhaps, where there were two variants of the tradition(s) about Abra(ha)m's wife, one in which she was called saray and another in which she was known as sara (i.e. sar together with two historically different feminine-forming suffixes); through the clever device of having her change her name (with God's sanction) in the middle of the story, both could be accommodated! (And couldn't this also account for the avram / avraham change?)
17:16
God blesses Abraham's wife Sarah (uverakhti otah). The way in which he proposes to bless her is, first of all, expressed by the slightly complicated (on account of the verb's multiple complements) but clearly expressed clause w'gam natátti mimménna l'kha ben 'I also give (or have given) you (l'kha) a son (ben) from her (mimménna)'; so, God's first blessing of Sarah consists of her also (in addition to Hagar?) being the means of providing Abram with a male child. God then blesses her (or says he is blessing her) a second time (uverakhtíha) and this time says she will "give birth to nations" and even kings will come from her. This second "blessing" sounds to me like the usual kind of thing accorded to all patriarchs, Abraham included; recall the discussion of the importance of zéra‛ (i.e. descendants) in connection with the prec. passage, which is actually part of the same scene as this passage. What this says, then, when all is said and done, is that God has just confirmed to Abraham that his wife Sarah will be a matriarch, one of the ancestors of the future children of Israel. And that, of course, depends on the two promises God has just made: in the short term, she will give Abram a son; in the long term she takes up her place alongside Abraham as an ancestor of the Israelites.
17:17 wayyippol avraham ‛al panaw
See note on 17:3.
wayyitzxaq
'And laughed' or 'and smiled', because he thought he and his wife were too old, but this is an implicit, yet blatant, word play, a name game: wayyitzxaq 'and he laughed/smiled', w'yitzxaq 'and Isaac.' We haven't heard the last of this particular name game, which seems to have been a favourite: see also 18:12. I imagine that it was already well-worn when the book's authors took it over from oral folk tradition millennia ago. Besides 'to laugh', the verb tz-x-q can also mean various things: 'to joke, to play, to amuse oneself, to fondle (a woman), to play around with...' (CHALOT); it occurs in Genesis in one or another sense several time, mostly in connection with Isaac or his parents one way or another. It is not to be confused with tz-‛-q 'to cry out, to call for help', which has already occurred (4:10) and will occur twice more in the book (27:34 and 41:55).
17:18 lu yishma‛el yixye l'fanékha
The particle lu preceding an imperfect, as in lu... yixye 'let (Ishmael) live', expresses a wish or a hypothetical condition. The verb x-y-h basically means 'to live' and also, with dynamic aspect, 'to recover (from illness, for example)'. Speiser suggests, however, that here yixye l'fanékha (lit. '(let him) live in your presence') has the sense of '(let him) thrive.' Thus on the pragmatic level lu might be said to introduce a certain kind of request; we might even translate it functionally as 'please.'
17:20 ul'yishma‛el sh'ma‛tíkha
'As for Ishmael, I have heeded you' (JPS). Notice the pun! The first H word demonstrates that ul'- lit. 'and to' may have the meaning 'as for, and as regards', introducing a discourse topic. The verb form sh'ma‛tíkha is lit. 'I (have) heard you' or 'I (have) listened to you.'
sh'nem ‛asar n'si'im
The noun nasi, which is derived from the verb n-s-' 'to raise, exalt', is another word for 'chief, prince (but cf. note on v. 15), etc.' In 23:6 the "Hittite" inhabitants of Hebron politely will tell the resident Abram n'si elohim atta b'tokhénu 'you are God's nasi in our midst' - the translations and commentaries seem uncertain in what sense to understand this, however. Elsewhere it seems to mean 'tribal leader', which fits the present context just fine. Older English translations (KJV) say 'princes', more recent ones (JPS) 'chieftains.'
17:21 lammo‛ed hazze basshana ha'axéret
Vulg. tempore isto in anno altero, KJV at this set time in the next year, JPS at this season next year. Any translation doubts revolve around the noun mo‛ed 'meeting-place (whence also meeting, assembly), appointed time, fixed day (whence also feast)' (CHALOT), a nominalization derived from the root y-‛-d 'to appoint' (EK) in the sense of 'to designate (e.g. a time).' Where translation to English is concerned, mo‛ed is one of the many concepts covered quite naturally by the word time; it is a notion also often expressed by date; in idiomatic English we talk about the date of a meeting or Christmas time; in present-day English we do not talk or write, idiomatically, of the "appointed time" or the "set time" or the "season". The fact that in other contexts time in English corresponds to different words in other languages is absolutely no good reason why a translator should resist using time in English, without more ado, in contexts where that is what it is called. Therefore I prefer to go here with Speiser's by this time next year or ESV's at this time next year, either of which are perfectly good in my opinion. For the fulfilment of this prediction see 18:2.
17:25 ben sh'losh ‛esre shana
I find it hard to believe that it is by mere coincidence that the age of thirteen comes to be mentioned here. It would seem that the association of thirteen-year-old males with the assumption of various religious duties is one that goes a long way back in Jewish history, even though the present-day concept of bar mitzwa 'son of commandment', and the more recent extension to bat mitzwa for girls, is said not to date back that far. Now as we know, Jewish males do not get circumcised in normal conditions at age thirteen, their parents have them circumcised when they are eight days old, and this custom is old enough that it is reflected in 17:12 which we recently read: uven sh'monat yamim yimmol lakhem kol zakhar l'dorotekhem 'And throughout the generations, every male among you shall be circumcised at the age of eight days' (JPS). However, commentators agree that in the cultural environment of Canaan, it was commonly the custom for male circumcision to form part of a coming of age ceremony at the onset of puberty, and one can hardly avoid the thought that perhaps that is what was going on with Ishmael, who in the Genesis cosmovision represents a large group of people (twelve tribes no less!) who were not Israelites. His future brother Isaac, on the other hand, who is counted as a father of the Israelite nation, will be circumcised at the age of eight days (see 21:4). Here is part of Speiser's comment (EAS p. 126-7): "Circumcision is an old and widely diffused practice, generally linked with puberty and premarital rites. In the ancient Near East it was observed by many of Israel's neighbours, among them the Egyptians, the Edomites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and certain other nomadic elements... But the Philistines did not follow it... and neither did the 'Hivites' (i.e. Horites) of Central Palestine ([Gen.] xxxiv.15). Nor was the custom in vogue in Mesopotamia. Thus the patriarchs would not have been likely to adopt circumcision prior to their arrival in Canaan, which is just what the present account says in another way... Eventually, the rite became a distinctive group characteristic, and hence also a cultural and spiritual symbol. To P, however, it was essential proof of adherence to the covenant."
END OF SECTION 3
Thus we reach the end of the first of three parashot which will make up the Abraham cycle. This section began by transporting the listener-reader, together with Abram and his kinfolks, to the land of Canaan which is the principal setting and geographical centre of gravity for most of the Genesis narrative. Once there, we have encountered themes which set the scene for the action to follow, where those same themes will continue to demand our attention: the migratory process, the resulting issue of and strategies for managing relations with the foreign peoples and cultures with which they now come into contact through their new neighbours, worries over continuity of the family through biological reproduction and questions about inheritance, and of course the great, overarching main theme which dominates the whole section and intersects all these matters: God and his covenant. The parasha starts with God commanding Abram and ends with God making Abraham a promise, and in the bigger view of things, all that happens in between is pertinent to the patriarch's and God's relationship with each other. This does not mean, however, that the story is just about God, it is often about people and human troubles, such as family (including frictions between wives over questions of rank and territorial squabbles between relatives), wealth (which in Abraham's case as a herdsman consists mostly of maintaining and expanding his livestock) and getting established in a place. Abraham has now settled down at Mamre in Hebron, and although the next section will see him moving about quite a bit, this will remain the closest thing to home for him and his future family.
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