I am confused by a relatively insignificant point from Vayishlakh. Rabbi Blake always elevates the weighty points. Leave it to me to identify the trivia questions.
Go to p.171 in the Oxford Bible Atlas, titled “The Land of Canaan”, which you can do here for free if you are patient: http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Bible-Atlas-Adrian-Curtis/dp/0191001589#reader_0191001589 (p.56 in my hard copy).
You will observe where these scholars place: •Makhanayim •Peni(u)el •Sukot along the Yabok River (today, known as the Zarqa River in Jordan). If you are following along in the atlas, you will see my dilemma.
Kharan/Padan-Aram is of course off the map, in modern day Turkey, just over the Syrian border, way to the NNE of Damascus on the map. At a high level, the Yabok River flows westward, dipping to the SW just before it enters the Jordan River, about 40km N of the Dead Sea.
Jacob and retinue left Kharan heading SSW for the Promised Land, with Lavan in fast pursuit. At the end of Vayeitze, last week’s parasha, Lavan catches up to Jacob and they erect a stone marker to delineate their respective turfs. This place is named Makhanayim. The Oxford Bible Atlas places it just S of the Yabok River, implying Jacob and Lavan would have forded the river prior to striking their agreement.
But, notice that Peni(u)el and Sukot are N of the Yabok. For this to work, Jacob and retinue would have had to ford the Yabok heading N after Lavan, in direct violation of the agreement with Lavan. Since Seir and Esau were to the South, he presumably dispatched his gifts to meet Esau, making them cross the river once more.
Then, we read in Vayishlakh that Jacob rises in the night and crosses the river at a ford with his family and servants, placing them on Esau’s S side of the Yabok River. Jacob then returns to the N side of the Yabok alone, where he wrestles with a “man”. Let’s set aside this metaphor for a spiritual, emotional, or physical struggle.
Rabbis have puzzled over why Jacob would cross the river again alone at night back to the N side when he had just moved his entire family to the S side of the Yabok in the middle of the night. Rashi conjectures that he had left some bottles on the N side that he needed to retrieve. I don’t know a respectful way to say lame. Rabbis probably knew less about river fording than I. The Yabok is generally not a dry wadi. It is the 2nd biggest tributary of the lower Jordan River. But, it is totally believable that there were many shallow, natural fords in this river, allowing people and flocks to cross over easily. Why Jacob would choose to make his family cross to the Southern unprotected side (from which Esau was coming) in the middle of the night when it was presumably dark and slippery, who knows? If this were a serious river, as those encountered by pioneers in the American trek West, fording a river often requires ropes. There would have been an obvious reason to cross back to the N to retrieve the end of the rope. I am guessing this wasn’t necessary at all given the size of the Yabok; but, who knows? Maybe when you are going nuts with guilt and fear of facing the brother you deceived a couple decades earlier, maybe attempting to sleep near 11 children is not conducive to wrestling/dealing with all of the concomitant emotions. But, why would he place his family in harm’s way? He could have slept alone on the S side of the Yabok and left his family on the opposite side of the river from Esau.
Presumably, after naming the place where he struggled with the “man” Peni(u)el, Jacob crosses the river in the morning with his limp to rejoin his family on the S bank and proceeds to his reunion with Esau. After Esau departs, Jacob and family again do not do what they said they would do and instead go to Sukot, which is on the North side of the Yabok, before crossing the Jordan and going to Shechem.
I lost count. But, there is a lot of river fording going on, with and without flocks. Either the Yabok was a lot smaller than it is today or the Oxford Bible Atlas got it wrong with Makhanayim?
I cannot vouch for the accuracy of these photos; but, you may like to go here for a visual sense of the Yabok. http://www.bibleplaces.com/jabbok.htm DavidS
1 of 2
ReplyDeleteI am confused by a relatively insignificant point from Vayishlakh. Rabbi Blake always elevates the weighty points. Leave it to me to identify the trivia questions.
Go to p.171 in the Oxford Bible Atlas, titled “The Land of Canaan”, which you can do here for free if you are patient: http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Bible-Atlas-Adrian-Curtis/dp/0191001589#reader_0191001589 (p.56 in my hard copy).
You will observe where these scholars place:
•Makhanayim
•Peni(u)el
•Sukot
along the Yabok River (today, known as the Zarqa River in Jordan). If you are following along in the atlas, you will see my dilemma.
2 of 2
ReplyDeleteKharan/Padan-Aram is of course off the map, in modern day Turkey, just over the Syrian border, way to the NNE of Damascus on the map. At a high level, the Yabok River flows westward, dipping to the SW just before it enters the Jordan River, about 40km N of the Dead Sea.
Jacob and retinue left Kharan heading SSW for the Promised Land, with Lavan in fast pursuit. At the end of Vayeitze, last week’s parasha, Lavan catches up to Jacob and they erect a stone marker to delineate their respective turfs. This place is named Makhanayim. The Oxford Bible Atlas places it just S of the Yabok River, implying Jacob and Lavan would have forded the river prior to striking their agreement.
But, notice that Peni(u)el and Sukot are N of the Yabok. For this to work, Jacob and retinue would have had to ford the Yabok heading N after Lavan, in direct violation of the agreement with Lavan. Since Seir and Esau were to the South, he presumably dispatched his gifts to meet Esau, making them cross the river once more.
Then, we read in Vayishlakh that Jacob rises in the night and crosses the river at a ford with his family and servants, placing them on Esau’s S side of the Yabok River. Jacob then returns to the N side of the Yabok alone, where he wrestles with a “man”. Let’s set aside this metaphor for a spiritual, emotional, or physical struggle.
Rabbis have puzzled over why Jacob would cross the river again alone at night back to the N side when he had just moved his entire family to the S side of the Yabok in the middle of the night. Rashi conjectures that he had left some bottles on the N side that he needed to retrieve. I don’t know a respectful way to say lame. Rabbis probably knew less about river fording than I. The Yabok is generally not a dry wadi. It is the 2nd biggest tributary of the lower Jordan River. But, it is totally believable that there were many shallow, natural fords in this river, allowing people and flocks to cross over easily. Why Jacob would choose to make his family cross to the Southern unprotected side (from which Esau was coming) in the middle of the night when it was presumably dark and slippery, who knows? If this were a serious river, as those encountered by pioneers in the American trek West, fording a river often requires ropes. There would have been an obvious reason to cross back to the N to retrieve the end of the rope. I am guessing this wasn’t necessary at all given the size of the Yabok; but, who knows? Maybe when you are going nuts with guilt and fear of facing the brother you deceived a couple decades earlier, maybe attempting to sleep near 11 children is not conducive to wrestling/dealing with all of the concomitant emotions. But, why would he place his family in harm’s way? He could have slept alone on the S side of the Yabok and left his family on the opposite side of the river from Esau.
Presumably, after naming the place where he struggled with the “man” Peni(u)el, Jacob crosses the river in the morning with his limp to rejoin his family on the S bank and proceeds to his reunion with Esau. After Esau departs, Jacob and family again do not do what they said they would do and instead go to Sukot, which is on the North side of the Yabok, before crossing the Jordan and going to Shechem.
I lost count. But, there is a lot of river fording going on, with and without flocks. Either the Yabok was a lot smaller than it is today or the Oxford Bible Atlas got it wrong with Makhanayim?
DavidS
I cannot vouch for the accuracy of these photos; but, you may like to go here for a visual sense of the Yabok.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bibleplaces.com/jabbok.htm
DavidS