If Jacob Is Returning to Canaan, Why Send Messengers to Esau in Seir?

In the Latin Vulgate and most English translations, chapter 32 starts one verse later than in the Hebrew, thus verse 5 in the Hebrew is verse 6 in those translations.

The meeting between Jacob and Esau is part of the J account. On the separation of the J and E versions of Jacob’s return to Canaan, see my, “Jacob's Journey to Mahanaim and Penuel in J and E,” TheTorah (2018).

The next phrase mentions Paddan-Aram, which shows that the verse has been either spliced with a Priestly verse or edited by the compiler to connect the language of J with that of P.

For more on this principle and how Ramban uses it, see David Freidenreich, “What Does Sarah's Expulsion of Hagar Signify for Abraham's Descendants,” TheTorah (2018).

For why this is, see Malka Zeiger Simkovich, “Esau the Ancestor of Rome,” TheTorah (2018).

LXX here reads, πορευσόμεθα ἐπ᾽ εὐθεῖαν, which means “we shall proceed along a direct route,” implying that it was working with a different Vorlage.

Jacob came from the house of Laban his uncle. According to J Laban lived in Haran (29:4–5) while in P he lived in Paddan Aram (25:20, 28:2, 31:18, 33:18, 33:18, 35:9, 26, 46:15).

The biblical term is actually not the name of a specific road but a translation of an Assyrian technical term, ḫarrān šarri, referring to public roads.

This is the same route taken by Chedorlaomer and his companions on their way to fight the coalition of the Dead Sea kings (14:5–6). See my “Abram at the Battle of the Kings: When Was the Dead Sea the Valley of Siddim?,” TheTorah (2016).

The Jabbok River—modern day Nahr az-Zarqa (Blue River)—is 40 miles long, beginning near Zarqa, north-east of Amman and flowing generally westward until it discharges into the Jordan River, of which it is the second largest tributary. Thus, there is no one ford of the river, and where the river is crossed depends on which road a person is taking.

To get a sense of the geographic-strategic picture, Jacob divides his camp into two camps (32:8–9) and they likely remain on the north side of the river, while he and his family are on the south side. One camp goes upstream (east) and the other goes downstream (west). At night, Jacob feels trapped between the river and Esau’s people approaching from the south, so he crosses his family over to the north as well (32:23–24). This way he has the river as a defense line between Esau and his family. Jacob stays alone (32:25a) on the southern side of the river knowing that if Esau attacks him, it will give some time to his family to escape. In the morning, he splits his family into two camps:

^{בראשית לג:א} ...וַיַּחַץ אֶת הַיְלָדִים עַל לֵאָה וְעַל רָחֵל וְעַל שְׁתֵּי הַשְּׁפָחוֹת. ^לג:ב וַיָּשֶׂם אֶת הַשְּׁפָחוֹת וְאֶת יַלְדֵיהֶן רִאשֹׁנָה וְאֶת לֵאָה וִילָדֶיהָ אַחֲרֹנִים וְאֶת רָחֵל וְאֶת יוֹסֵף אַחֲרֹנִים.

^{Gen 33:1} …He divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two maids, ^33:2 putting the maids and their children first, Leah and her children last, and Rachel and Joseph last.

Leah and Rachel could not both have been last; the text means that Leah and Rachel were each behind their respective maids, Rachel behind Bilhah and Leah behind Zilpah.

Perhaps it was introduced to Judean scribes escaping with King David to Mahanaim during Absalom's revolt (2 Sam 17:27). Alternatively, perhaps J's editor visited the area some other time, or was in contact with northern scribes who told him the story. However J came to learn of it, the Penuel tradition is clearly based on a northern poem that made its way to a Judahite storyteller.

For my division and interpretation of the Penuel and Mahanaim stories, see my “Jacob's Journey to Mahanaim and Penuel in J and E.”

J was probably also helped by the proximity of Mahanaim and Penuel to Sukkot, which is Jacob’s next stop after the meeting with Esau.

This lie so bothered R. Moshe Yitzchak Ashkenazi (1821–1898), that he argues in his commentary on the Torah (Ho’il Moshe, ad loc.), that Jacob certainly went to visit his brother in Seir after greeting his parents.

I have long argued that the origins of many of the tribes is in the Seir region, and that this can be seen in the Egyptian references to the region as nomad (shaswe) land YHWA. See my comments on this in “An Israeli Tour Guide with a Ph.D. in Bible: Ten Questions with Dr. Dudu Cohen,” TheTorah (2014). For another scholar who sees Israelite origins in this area, albeit for the Rachel tribes and not Judah, see Israel Knohl, “YHWH: The Original Arabic Meaning of the Name,” TheTorah (2019).

For example, he later moves to Migdal Eder (Gen 35:21). J also has Jacob buried in Goren HaAtad in the Negev. See my discussion in “Mourning for Jacob at Goren Ha-Atad,” TheTorah (2014).

The fact that J associates Beer-lahai-roi with Hagar and Ishmael, who, like Esau, represent another “foreign” branch of Abraham’s family (Gen 16:7–14), only highlights how foreign their ancient homeland had become to these scribes.

Eventually P will finish this process by bringing insisting that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all lived in Hebron (Gen 35:27).