Jacob’s Funeral and Esau’s Last Stand

Some critical scholars, bothered by the very fact of this two-stage burial process, attempt to separate the burial story into narrative strands. For an example of this approach, see David Ben-Gad HaCohen, “Mourning for Jacob at Goren ha-Atad,” TheTorah (2014).

The same midrash appears in Genesis Rabbah 100.6 [Theodor-Albeck], and with slight variations in Genesis Rabbah 97.29 [Theodor-Albeck] and Midrash Tanchuma, Vayechi 17.

Alternatively, Rabbi David Fränkel (1704–1762), in his Korban HaEdah commentary, suggests emending the text to reading לידוש באטד “to crush with a thornbush,” and argues that the text is trying to evoke Gideon’s threat to the people of Sukkot (j. Sotah 1:10):

ה"ג שהיו ראוין לידוש באטד. בשעה שנכנסו ישראל היה ראוי שימותו במיתות משונות כדכתיב ודשתי את בשרכם את הקוצים אלא שעמד להם ההספד כגורן הזה העשוי לקיום בני אדם:

This is how the text should read: “They were fit to be threshed with thornbushes.” When the Israelites entered Israel, it would have been fitting had the Canaanites died in a gruesome manner, as it says (Judg 8:7): “I'll thresh your bodies upon thorns….” But the eulogy they kept them [from being killed this way], like a threshing floor which is made to keep people alive [by providing them with grain].

Fränkel’s reading of the passage as being about the treatment of the Canaanites in Joshua’s conquest falls short, however, since the Canaanites are still killed during the conquest. Admittedly, they are not literally threshed to death with thorns, but this seems like small consolation to the Canaanites.

This last interpretation is based on the reading of the word zeh (“this”) as deictic. The view is then expanded with a homiletical message:

ומה אם אילו שלא עשו חסד לא בידיהן ולא ברגליהן ראו מה פרע להן הקדוש ברוך הוא. ישראל שהן עושין חסד בידיהן וברגליהן עם גדוליהן ועם קטניהן על אחת כמה וכמה!

Now, if these, who did not perform an act of kindness with their hands or feet [but just their fingers], see what reward the Holy One blessed be He granted them, Jews, who do kindness with their hands and feet with their elders and their children, how much more so [will the Holy One granted them reward]!

The text follows MS Vatican 110-111, but with abbreviations filled out and punctuation added.

Perhaps this signifies a recognition on the Canaanites part of the Israelites’ future claim to their land.

The text continues:

תנא: שלשים וששה כתרים נתלו בארונו של יעקב ויספדו שם מספד גדול וכבד מאד מאילו ומאילו.

It was taught: they hung sixty-six crowns on Jacob’s casket, and they offered a large and very great eulogy, each greater than the next.

According to this, it is the sons of Esau, Ishmael, and Keturah who compete on offering eulogies. An alternative version, that appears in the printed editions and in Oxford 2675, goes to the supernatural:

תאנא אפילו סוסים גמלים וחמורים.

It was taught: Even the horses, camels, and donkeys [mourned/eulogized Jacob].

R. Abahu lived in Israel and was thus part of the same tradition that produced the Yerushalmi interpretations quoted above. Why the Bavli’s editors erased the Canaanites is unclear. One possibility is to keep things “all in the family” by replacing less significant figures with more significant/involved figures. The Bavli’s version has the “rejected” family of Abraham, i.e., those who were not recipients of the covenant, paying obeisance to Jacob, providing a positive closure to the fratricidal conflicts of Genesis.

This is the text in Midrash Tanchuma as well (Vayechi 18, Buber ed.). Notably, this text (in both versions) begins with (quoting Tanchuma):

ויעשו בניו לו כאשר צום–מה עשו? חנטו אותו והעלו אותו...

“And the brothers did as he [Jacob] commanded them” (Gen 50:12)—what did they do? They embalmed him and brought him up [to Israel]…

The texts then continue first with the midrash about the crowns and then with the interpretations in the Yerushalmi. This opening goes against the verse’s basic context, which is that they buried him in Israel, as it appears after the funeral procession left Egypt and were standing in Goren ha-Atad. Moreover, it is Joseph who has Jacob embalmed (Gen 50:2), not the brothers. It seems that the text seeks to build up the brothers’ obedience and thereby draw an implicit comparison between Jacob’s sons, who carefully prepare and transport his body to Canaan, and the Canaanites, who go to great lengths to pay respect to the body of the Jacob.

The Talmud interrupts Esau’s speech with a gloss (see Rashi, ad loc.):

וא"ר יצחק: קרית ארבע זוגות היה אדם וחוה אברהם ושרה יצחק ורבקה יעקב ולאה.

And Rabbi Isaac said: “[The meaning of Kiryat HaArba is] the city (kiryah) of the four (arba) couples: Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah.”

The gloss is meant to explain to the reader that Esau’s reading of the verse is incorrect.

It is not entirely clear how Esau is counting. Does he follow R. Isaac and the four-couples model, or is he supposed to have something else in mind?

The brothers’ response is based on a creative translation of the verb, which in context means dug. The Talmud spells this point out explicitly, in a detour from the dialogue:

ואין כירה אלא מכירה, שנאמר ואכרה לי בחמ[שה] ועשרים כסף.

The term kirah (dig) is the language of mekhirah (sale), as it says (Hos 3:2): “And I bought her (ekareha) for fifteen shekels of silver.”

This gloss, in other MS and printed versions, appears in the name of R. Yohanan quoting either R. Simon ben Yehozadak or R. Simon bar Yohai. Also, in the printed version, an entirely different proof is brought instead of the biblical prooftext:

שכן בכרכי הים קורין למכירה כירה

Because in coastal cities, instead of the full word mekhirah (sale) they use the abbreviated khirah.

The Talmud again adds a gloss with another midrashic hook for why they send Naphtali.

א"ר אבהו: אל תיקרי [הנותן] אימרי שפר אלא אימרי סופר.

R. Abahu said: “Do not read [the second half of the verse as “which yields] goodly words” but as “words of a scribe.”

In other words, R. Abahu reads the verse as Jacob predicting how Naphtali will use his speed to get the needed written contract.

This may be a wordplay between the name Ḥushim and the word for “deaf” ḥeresh (חרשׁ), which share two root letters.

The rabbis commonly interpret verses from Psalms as historical references.

This is the NRSV translation. NJPS reads: “Before the thorns grow into a bramble, may He whirl them away alive in fury.”

The rabbis refer to this with the verse in Ecclesiastes (10:5) ‎כִּשְׁגָגָ֕ה שֶׁיֹּצָ֖א מִלִּפְנֵ֥י הַשַּׁלִּֽיט “like an error that proceeded from the ruler.” Another biblical example was Jacob declaring to Laban about his stolen idols that “whoever is found to have them shall not live” (Gen 31:32), which the rabbis see as explaining Rachel’s early death (Genesis Rabbah 74:4). Some other examples of this principal can be found in both the Yerushalmi (Shabbat 14:4, 16:1, Ketubot 2:6, Sotah 9:15, Shevuot 4:2, 4, Avodah Zarah 2:2) and the Bavli (Moed Katan 18a, Ketubot 23a, 62b, Baba Metzia 68a).

Also note that, like other sources from Israel, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not exchange Canaanites for the sons of Esau, Ishmael, and Keturah, in the scene where the natives show respect for Jacob (Gen 50:10):

וַחֲמָא יַתְבֵי אַרְעָא כְּנַעֲנָאֵי אוּבְלָא בְּבֵית אִדְרֵי דְאָטָד וְשַׁרְיַין קְטוּרֵי חַרְצֵהוֹן בְּגִין אִיקַר דְיַעֲקב וַהֲווֹ מְחַוִין בִּידֵיהוֹן וְאָמְרִין אֵבֶל תַּקִיף דֵין לְמִצְרַיִם בְּגִין כֵּן קְרָא שְׁמָא דְאָתַר אָבֵל מִצְרַיִם דִי בְּעִיבְרָא דְיוֹרְדְנָא.

And the inhabitants of the land of Canaan beheld the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, and they loosened the girding of their loins in honor of Jacob, and they pointed with their hands and said, “This is a mighty mourning for Egypt.” Therefore the place was called Abel-mitzrayim, which is on the other side of the Jordan.

The two refer to each other as “my father” and “my son” respectively, in Genesis 27. When Jacob tricks Isaac into giving him the blessing in place of his brother, Isaac is heartbroken for his favorite son and tries to comfort him by blessing him with something (though this doesn’t end up calming Esau down).

Notably, the burial of Isaac is performed by both sons together:

^{בראשית לה:כט} ‎וַיִּגְוַ֙ע יִצְחָ֤ק וַיָּ֙מָת֙ וַיֵּאָ֣סֶף אֶל־עַמָּ֔יו זָקֵ֖ן וּשְׂבַ֣ע יָמִ֑ים וַיִּקְבְּר֣וּ אֹת֔וֹ עֵשָׂ֥ו וְיַעֲקֹ֖ב בָּנָֽיו׃

^{Gen 35:29} Isaac breathed his last and died. He was gathered to his kin in ripe old age; and he was buried by his sons Esau and Jacob.

The image is grotesquely reminiscent of an earlier rabbinic tradition of Abraham’s (non-dismembered) head lying in Sarah’s lap in the same cave (b. Baba Batra 58a):

ר' בנאה הוה קא מציין מערתא. כי מטא למערתא דאברהם אשכחיה לאליעזר עבד אברהם דקאי קמי בבא. אמר ליה: מאי קא עביד אברהם? אמר ליה: גאני בכנפה דשרה וקא מעיינא ליה ברישיה.

Rabbi Bena’a was marking burial caves for the purpose of helping to prevent the contracting of ritual impurity. When he arrived at the cave of Abraham, i.e., the Cave of Machpelah, he encountered Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, who was standing before the entrance. Rabbi Bena’a said to him: What is Abraham doing at this moment? Eliezer said to him: He is lying in the arms of Sarah, and she is examining his head.

In this story, the deep affection between Sarah and Abraham is expressed in how, even after death, he lies in her arms and she shows concern about him. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan may be borrowing the image from the Bavli, or alternatively, this could be a motif that both authors are using to express the idea of love so powerful it stretches beyond the grave into the next world.

This differs from the treatment of Esau in most rabbinic texts, which is highly negative because, as I discuss in my, “Esau the Ancestor of Rome” (TheTorah 2018), Esau becomes associated with Rome and, as such, is reviled as Israel’s mortal enemy. For more on readings of Esau, see Barry Dov Walfish, “The Denigration of Esau,” TheTorah (2020). For a reading of the biblical text, see George Savran, “Did Jacob and Esau Reconcile?” TheTorah (2020).