Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

SOJOURN IN THE NEGEB 20:1-21:34
over the mother of the child of the covenant”; hence this
verse is the complement essential to explaining v, 17. Other
authorities explain that in v. 3, we have Elohivz without
the article, that is, Deity generally; but Rbimelech recog-
nizes the Lord, Adonai, i.e., God (v. 4); whereupon the
historian represents Him as Elobim with the article, that
is, the personal and true God, as speaking to him (Delitzsch,
BCOTP, 240). Cf, Green (UBG, 2jl, 212) : “The critics
have mistaken the lofty style used in describing grand
creative acts or the vocabulary employed in setting forth
the universal catastrophe of the deluge for the fixed habit
of an Elohist writer, and set it over against the graceful
style of the ordinary narrative in the early Jehovist sections.
But in this chapter and in the rest of Genesis, whenever
Elohim occurs in narrative sections, the stately periods of
the account of the creation and the vocabulary of the
creation and the flood are dropped, and terms appropriate
to the common affairs of life and the ordinary course of
human events are employed by the Elohist precisely as
they are by the Jehovist. Elohim occurs throughout this
chapter (vs. 3, 6, 11, 12, 17), except in the last verse
(v. 18) where Jehovah is used. But the words and phrases
are those which are held to be characteristic of the Je-
hovist.” Thus do the critics nullify their own “assured
results.”
Again, the question is raised by the critics, Why the
specific’ inclusion of the elaboration by Abraham as re-
gards his motivation in dealing with Abirnelech, as dis-
tinguished from the narrative of his dealing with Pharaoh?
That is to say, is there a reason for the explanation to
Abimelech that his wife was in reality a half-sister in view
of the fact that no such explanation was vouchsafed‘the
king of Egypt? Obviously, there is a reason for this
difference. Again, note Green (UBG, 257, n.) : ::Abraham
says of his wife at the outset, ‘She is my sister’ (v. 2). ; In
and of itself this is quite intelligible; and a Hebrew narrator
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