Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis

by Robert Graves

  Three years later, Abram again visited Ishmael’s tent. Patuma ran out to greet him, saying: ‘I regret that my lord Ishmael has gone hunting. Come in, take refreshment, and await his return; for you must be weary of travel.’ Abram answered: ‘I cannot dismount; but pray give me water to quench my thirst!’ Patuma fetched water, and also pressed him to eat bread; which he did gladly, blessing Ishmael, and God also. Abram told Patuma: ‘When Ishmael returns, say: “An aged man of such and such appearance came from the Land of the Philistines, in search of you. He said: ‘Assure your husband that the new tent-peg is an excellent one; let him not cast it away!” Upon receiving this message, Ishmael understood that Patuma had paid her father-in-law due respect; and presently took her, his sons, flocks, herds and camels, to visit Abram in the Land of the Philistines, where they spent many days; and his house prospered.262

  (h) Ishmael met Isaac only once more: when together they buried Abram in the Cave of Machpelah at Hebron.263

  (i) Before Ishmael died, at the age of one hundred and thirty-seven, he had twelve sons. They were Nebaioth, Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedmah. Each became a prince, and each had a village from which his people set out on their wanderings.264

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  1. This myth supports Israelite claims to nobler, though later, descent than the Southern kinsmen who had been forced into the wilderness by their step-mother Sarai. Hagar in South Arabic means ‘village’, which explains why her grandsons are said to have lived in villages of their own.

  Lahai-Roi is more likely to mean ‘Well of the Reem’s Jawbone’, on the analogy of others named after animals, such as En-Gedi, ‘Well of the Kid’, (Joshua XV. 62) and En-Eglaim, ‘Well of the Two Calves’ (Ezekiel XLVII. 10). In Judges XV. 17–19 Samson, like Ishmael, is given water by God when thirsty, at a well called Lehi (‘jawbone’).

  Bered is identified by the Targum Yer. with Khalasa, an important town on the road from Beersheba to Egypt. Kadesh, east of Bered, possessed an oracular spring, En-Mishpat (Genesis XIV. 7).

  2. A close parallel to the difficult relationship between Abram, Sarai and Hagar is found in the Laws of Hammurabi: ‘If a man marries a priestess—naditum (a hierodule, or temple servant, forbidden to bear children)—and if she gives her husband a bond-maid to bear him children, and if afterwards this bond-maid demands equal honour with her mistress because of the children she has borne, the priestess must not sell her, but she may be returned to bondage among her fellow-slaves.’ Casting a shoe across property was a ritual act of asserting possession (Ruth IV. 7; Psalm LX. 10). Sarai cast shoes in Hagar’s face as a reminder of her servitude.

  3. Abram circumcised Ishmael at the age of thirteen (Genesis XVII. 25)—circumcision being originally a pre-marital rite—and Isaac was born about a year later (Genesis XVIII. 1–15; XXI. 1 ff); which makes Ishmael the elder by fourteen years. Since Ishmael here appears as a babe in arms whom Hagar lays under a bush, a later mythographer has repaired this inconsistency by explaining that Sarai had cast the evil eye on him, so that he grew wizened. His catching of locusts probably means that Sarai suspected Hagar of planning to supplant her in Abram’s affections: according to the Ethiopian Kebra Nagast, Pharaoh’s daughter used locusts and a scarlet thread to seduce King Solomon.

  4. The Wilderness of Paran, occupied by Ishmael, lies in Northern Sinai. Most of the twelve Ishmaelite tribes here named appear in other records; but their confederacy does not seem to have been securely fixed. In Judges XIII. 24 the Midianites are reckoned as Ishmaelites, although Genesis XXV. I ff ranks Midian as Ishmael’s half-brother. Nebaioth and Kedar, the first two sons of Ishmael, are mentioned by Isaiah XLII. 11; LX. 7; Jeremiah XLIX. 28; Ezekiel XVII. 21. Nebaioth’s territory lay east of the Dead Sea; Kedar’s north of Nebaioth, in the Syrian Desert. Nebaioth has been implausibly identified with the Nabataeans. Hadad’s territory is unknown; but Hadad was a Canaanite Storm-god. Kedmah means ‘people of the East’—probably the Syrian Desert.

  5. Adbeel, Massa and Tema appear in records of the Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser III (eighth century B.C.) as the Idiba‘ilites, Mas’a and Tema—all Arab tribes. The records of Assurbanipal (seventh century B.C.) contain the names Su-mu‘-il, or Ishmael whose king was Uate or Iaute, and Kedar: whose king was Ammuladi. Tiglath-Pileser assigned Idibi‘lu of Arabia the task of guarding the Egyptian frontier and, after conquering the Philistines, gave him twenty-five of their cities. Tema is the oasis in Northern Arabia still called Tayma. Dumah seems to be Adumatu, an oasis and fort in the Syrian Desert conquered by Sennacherib. Mibsam and Mishma rank in 1 Chronicles IV. 25 among the sons of Simeon, which suggests that the Israelite tribe of Simeon, whose territory spread southward from Judaea, assimilated at least part of them.

  6. Jetur and Naphish are mentioned in 1 Chronicles V. 19, together with Nodab and the Hagrites, as tribes against whom the trans-Jordanian Israelites—Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh—made war. The same passage (V. 21) indicates that the Hagrites were camel-breeders and shepherds. Josephus, St. Luke and the Church Fathers mention the Jeturites, or Ituraeans (Itouraioi). Their territory bordered on Edom (Idumaea) and, in 104 B.C., King Aristobulus the Hasmonean annexed some of it, at the same time forcibly converting the Ituraeans to Judaism. Two generations later, they moved northward and occupied parts of the Hermon range and Syria where, in Gospel times, Herod’s son Philip the Tetrarch ruled them. Their archers served as Roman auxiliaries, and are mentioned by Virgil and Cicero—who calls them ‘the most savage race on earth’.

  7. After David founded his kingdom and strengthened the Aramaean nomads, the Ishmaelites seem to have been forced southwards, where they merged with better established Arab tribes. Subsequently, the Arabs accepted the view, still held by them, that all Northern, or Adnani, Arab tribes were descended from Ishmael. Hagar’s name has been preserved by the Hagrites (Hagrim or Hagri’im), a tribe mentioned with Jetur and Naphish in 1 Chronicles V. 19, and with the Ishmaelites in Psalm LXXXIII. 7. Eratosthenes, cited by Strabo, places them east of Petra.

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  ABRAHAM IN GERAR

  (a) At Gerar, between Kadesh and Shur, Abram again passed off Sarai as his sister. When King Abimelech of Gerar would have enjoyed her, God threatened him with death. Like Pharaoh, Abimelech protested his innocence; but God answered: ‘Nevertheless, make amends by sending Sarai back, and begging Abram to intercede for you!’ This Abimelech did, though reproaching Abram, who said, unperturbed: ‘When the gods caused me to wander abroad, I commanded my wife: “Tell all whom you meet that I am your brother!”—which is the truth.’

  King Abimelech gave Abram oxen, sheep, bond-women and a thousand pieces of silver, and invited him to stay at Gerar. Abram then made his intercession and God, who had closed the wombs of all the Gerar women, restored their fertility.265

  (b) Some say that Michael threatened Abimelech with a sword, and overruled his excuses, arguing: ‘When strangers enter a city, it is proper to offer them food; but improper to inquire after their women. Since you inquired after Sarai, Abram feared that your men might kill him if he acknowledged her as his wife. The guilt must therefore be yours!’

  They explain that God not only made the Gerar women barren: He closed up their other secret orifices, and those of the men too, so that at dawn the sorely troubled people met together, complaining: ‘By Heaven, one more night like the last, and we shall be dead!’266

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  1. Gerar was the name of both a kingdom and its capital city. The Land of Gerar lay on the south-western border of Canaan, separating it from Egypt, between Gaza and Beersheba. The city of Gerar was located in or near the Valley of Gerar which is identified by some scholars with modern Wadi Shari‘ah, to the north-west of Beersheba, by others with modern Wadi Ghaza, due west of Beersheba. But the name of the country survived as late as Byzantine times, when Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea called it Geraritica.

  2. The designation of Abimelech as a Philistine king (Genesis XXI. 33–34;
XXVI. 1, 8, 18) has been regarded as an anachronism, since the arrival of the Philistines in Canaan is usually assumed to have taken place around 1200 B.C., whereas Abraham lived in the second half of the fifteenth century B.C. An increasing number of scholars, however, incline to the view that the 1200 B.C. Philistine invasion was not the first (just as Joshua’s was only the concluding phase of a protracted process of Hebrew immigration into Canaan) and that some Philistines may well have been established in Gerar by 1500 B.C.

  3. The original home of the Philistines was Caphtor, which does not necessarily refer to the island of Crete (Keftiu in Egyptian) alone, but rather to the Minoan sphere in general, including the south-west of Asia Minor. Minoan or Caphtorian culture goes back to the third millennium B.C., and one instance of its early impact on the East-Mediterranean coast is the location in Caphtor of Kothar wa-Khasis’s workshop. He was the divine craftsman known to Greeks of the fourteenth century B.C. as Daedalus. In 1196 B.C. the Peoples of the Sea were defeated by Rameses III, whose monuments at Medinet Habu depict them wearing their characteristic helmets—the Biblical word for helmet, ‘koba’, is borrowed from Philistine, a non-Semitic tongue. Egyptian monuments mention several ‘Peoples of the Sea’, among whom the Pulasati, or Purasati, have been definitely identified with the Philistines.

  4. An earlier monument of Pharaoh Merneptah (late thirteenth century B.C.) mentions the Aqaiwasha or Ekwesh as one of the Sea Peoples. These have been equated by Eduard Meyer and others with the Achiyawa whose kingdom flourished in the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries B.C. in Pamphylia (southern Asia Minor), although some historians regard the island of Rhodes as their main base. They are known to have penetrated also Cyprus, are regarded as Achaeans (Achivi in Latin), and have been identified with the Hivi, or Hivites, frequently referred to in the Bible as one of the pre-Israelite peoples found in Canaan.

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  THE BIRTH OF ISAAC

  (a) When Abram was ninety-nine years old, God changed his name to Abraham, which means ‘Father of Many Nations’; once more announcing that his descendants should rule all the Land of Canaan, but now making this bequest conditional on the circumcision of every male child at the age of eight days. Thereupon Abraham circumcised himself and his entire household. God also changed Sarai’s name to Sarah, which means ‘Princess’, promising that she should become a mother of nations.

  Abraham fell upon his face before God, but secretly laughed to himself, thinking: ‘How can a child be borne by a ninety-year-old woman to a hundred-year-old husband?’ Yet, needing assurance that at least Ishmael would thrive, he said: ‘O that my son Ishmael might keep Your ways!’ God answered: ‘Have I not declared that Sarah will bear you a son? And since you laughed at My promise you shall name him Isaac. Ishmael is already blessed as the destined father of twelve princes, and ancestor of a great nation; but I will make My everlasting covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear you next year.’

  So saying, God vanished.267

  (b) Not long afterwards, as Abraham sat at his tent door in the terebinth grove of Mamre, three strangers approached. He invited them to wash their feet and take refreshment. While Sarah baked a large number of ember-cakes, Abraham ran to kill a calf for supper, and offered the strangers curds and whey besides. They sat in the shade of a tree, and presently asked where Sarah was. Abraham replied: ‘In yonder tent.’ They told him: ‘A year hence, she will bear you a son.’

  Sarah laughed to herself when she overheard this prophecy, since her monthly courses had long ceased.

  They asked: ‘Why does Sarah laugh? Is there anything God cannot accomplish?’

  ‘I never laughed!’ cried Sarah, reddening.

  ‘You did laugh!’ they repeated.

  Abraham’s visitors then rose to go, and he went part of the way with them. They were bound for Sodom.268

  (c) The following year Sarah bore a son, whom Abraham named Isaac and circumcised after eight days. Sarah said: ‘All the world will laugh when they hear that I am suckling Abraham’s son.’ But he gave a great feast on the day of Isaac’s weaning.269

  (d) Some say that astrologers had cast Abraham’s horoscope, and told him: ‘You will never beget a son!’; but God reassured him: ‘This horoscope was cast for Abram; therefore have I changed your name, and as Abraham you will beget a son. I have also changed Sarai’s name because of her horoscope.’270

  (e) Others say that Isaac’s birth was announced three days after Abraham’s circumcision of his entire household, and that God commanded Michael, Gabriel and Raphael to comfort Abraham, who suffered much pain, as always happens on the third day. The archangels protested: ‘Would You send us to an unclean place, full of blood?’ God answered: ‘By your lives, the odour of Abraham’s sacrifice pleases me better than myrrh and frankincense! Must I go Myself?’ Then they accompanied Him disguised as Arab wayfarers. Michael was to announce Isaac’s birth; Raphael, to heal Abraham; and Gabriel, to destroy the evil city of Sodom.271

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  1. The narrative alternates frequently between singular and plural verb forms when referring to the deity here called Elohim. Though Gunkel and others have attempted to resolve this apparent inconsistency by suggesting that the chapter is based on several different sources, the alternation seems deliberately chosen to emphasize God’s power of appearing in trinity. The divine character of the strangers (or ‘Stranger’) is conveyed by their knowledge that Abraham’s wife is now named Sarah, and that childlessness has been her greatest sorrow. They also know that Sarah has laughed to herself, though she remains unseen. Midrashic commentators make all three strangers archangels.

  2. Sarah’s long barrenness is paralleled in the myths of Rebekah (Genesis XXV.—see 38. a), Rachel (Genesis XXIX.—see 45. a), Samson’s unnamed mother (Judges XIII), Samuel’s mother Hannah (1 Samuel I), and the Babylonian hero Etana’s wife.

  3. God’s change of Abram’s name to ‘Abraham’ does not, at first sight, seem to deserve the importance it is here given, since both are variants of the same royal title Abamrama, or Abiramu, occurring in cuneiform tablets from the nineteenth and seventeenth centuries B.C.; so also is ‘Abiram’, the name of a leading conspirator against Moses (Numbers XVI. 1). Abiramu means ‘The God Ram is [My] Father’, or may be read as ‘The Father is Exalted’. ‘Father of Many Nations’, the meaning given to ‘Abraham’ in Genesis is, however, borne out by the Arabic raham, meaning ‘multitude’. The divine name Ram occurs also in Adoniram, Jehoram, Malchi-ram; and its plural (Job XXI. 22) is used to describe heavenly beings. A King of Edom in Sennacherib’s day was called Malik-ramu—‘Ram is King’.

  Changes of names at the coronation ceremony or the assumption of important office were common in Israel; thus Hoshea became Jehoshua (Numbers XIII. 16), Gideon became Jerubbaal (Judges VI. 32), Jedidiah became Solomon (2 Samuel XII. 25), Eliakim became Jehoiakim (2 Kings XXIII. 34), Mattaniah became Zedekiah (2 Kings XXIV. 17). Jacob’s adoption of the title ‘Israel’ (Genesis XXXII. 29—see 47. b) may be a further example.

  4. ‘Sarai’ also is merely another, older form of ‘Sarah’, both deriving from an ancient Semitic noun meaning ‘queen’ or ‘princess’. A goddess named Sharit or Sharayat (the phonemic equivalent of Sarai) was worshipped at Bozrah in the Hauran. This suggests that the account of Abraham and Sarah’s marriage records the union of a patriarchal Aramaean tribe headed by a priestly chieftain, with a matriarchal proto-Arab tribe led by a priestess-princess.

  5. The curds and whey offered to Abraham’s guests is translated ‘butter’ in the Authorised Version. Milk, poured into a skin and shaken, acquired the agreeably sour taste of buttermilk.

  6. Abraham is shown no particular reverence in the Bible until Ezekiel’s time (early sixth century B.C.—Ezekiel XXXIII. 24); neither is Sarah, until Ezra’s, when Isaiah LI. 2 was written.

  7. Sarah’s pregnancy at the age of ninety is a curious example of how pious editors converted unusual events into miracles. Here they have taken literally Abraham’s mocking exaggeration
of his own age and Sarah’s, on hearing that she will bear him a son after perhaps some thirty years of marriage. That she had passed her menopause is editorial comment, not Abraham’s statement. Midrashic enlargement on the miracle (Pesiqta Rabbati 177 a–b; Tanhuma Buber Gen. 107–08; Gen. Rab. 561, 564; B. Baba Metzia 87a) has been copious: thus the women of Abraham’s household thought Isaac a supposititious child, and tested Sarah’s motherhood by inviting her to suckle their own infants. When she bashfully refused, they grew still more suspicious, until Abraham told her ‘Uncover your breasts and provide milk for this entire brood!’, which she did.

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  LOT AT SODOM

  (a) God hesitated before confiding to Abraham His proposed destruction of Sodom; but did so after being hospitably welcomed at Mamre. He told him: ‘The evil fame of Sodom and Gomorrah has reached My ears. I shall now go down and see whether it has been exaggerated.’ Abraham drew closer, and said: ‘Would my Lord indeed sweep away the good with the wicked? There may be fifty righteous men in Sodom!’ God replied: ‘For the sake of fifty righteous men I will spare it.’ Abraham then bargained with God, asking: ‘What if there be only forty-five such men? Or thirty? Or even so few as twenty?’ Each time God answered: ‘For their sakes I will spare the city.’ At last He agreed to hold His hand for the sakes of only ten righteous men, and went hastily away.