Commentaire de citation sur La Genèse 14:6

a fiery law i.e., the Torah, which had been given among fire and lightning. Sa‘adya Gaon said further that God came on Sinai is an invocation, as if to say: “O, You Who descended upon Sinai, and bequeathed the Torah, may Reuven live etc. ”. But this is all farfetched, because in that case it would have to employ the second person masculine singular imperative, “grant life” and “do not kill”. Those who lack belief have said that Seir denotes the religion of Edom, while Paran denotes the religion of Ishmael. But these people are befuddled. Did they not see that he set out to bless Israel alone? — as it is written, “which Moshe, the man of God, bestowed upon the Children of Israel” [: 1], and then continues with shone to them from Seir . The correct interpretation, in my opinion, is that this section is a general benediction, covering all Israel, followed by the specific blessings for each individual tribe, after which he once again includes them all (in the passage, “Jeshurun, there is none like God” [: 26]). We find elsewhere that Deborah said, “God , when you came forth from Seir, when you marched out of the field of Edom” [Judges 5: 4], where clearly “the field of Edom” does not denote a mountain, although Sa‘adya Gaon claims that our verse describes three mountains that adjoin one another, or that face one another. Also, from the book of Psalms: “God, when You went forth before Your nation, when You marched through the wilderness” [Psalms 68: 8], following which we have “the earth shook” [Psalms 68: 9]; and the abovementioned “march of the Divine Presence through the wilderness” did not occur on the day of the giving of the Torah, for they entered the desert upon leaving the wilderness of Paran. Moreover, Habakkuk said, “God came from Teyman ” [Habakkuk 3: 3] (the latter being one of the descendants of Edom — see “Teyman, Omer, …” [Genesis 36: 11]) meaning the same as “from the field of Edom” [Judges 5: 4]. These verses all speak about wars, as evidenced by “let God arise, let His enemies be scattered” [Psalms 68: 2]. Scripture likens God ’s rescuing of His servants to help “descending” from God , and to the earth trembling, and to mountains melting, and to the heavens clamoring. Further evidence can be found in the song of David: “the earth shook and trembled” [Psalms 18: 8]. I have explained “Sinai itself” [Psalms 68: 9] in its place [comment on Psalms 68: 9], but I shall repeat myself here: “God came” — denotes the entry of the Glory among Israel Sinai was the beginning of that entry. shone from Seir — during all the years that Israel was in the wilderness, God did not display His might among the nations, until Israel came to the field of Edom. From the verse “their Mount Seir, as far as El-Paran” [Genesis 14: 6] we see that Seir was near Paran. Clearly, then, the meaning of our verse is: from the place of Seir (i.e., from the time that Israel arrived at Seir), at that point the Glory shone upon Israel. appeared from Mount Paran — this is a parallelism, repeating the idea that here was the point at which He displayed His splendor.

אלה בני שעיר החרי, “These are the sons of Seir, the Chori.” Rashi writes that the genealogy of all the people following was recorded here only in order to demonstrate the outstanding reputation of Avraham, which had caused Timna to make every conceivable effort to become related to him by marriage to him or one of his family members. Ibn Ezra writes that the reason for this chapter having been written is to separate the genealogy of Esau from that of the local inhabitants, the Chori. The Israelites received instructions from G’d concerning the descendants of Esau, but these were not applicable to the descendants of the Chori. Nachmanides explains that the Chori was the name of a founder of a nation which had been named after their founder-father. The nation was also called Seir, on account of the region inhabited by that nation. This latter name became associated with Esau and his descendants. The land of the Chori, which had first been inhabited by members of that tribe, was taken over by Esau and his sons. Our verse shows that the name Seir for the region concerned predated the arrival of Esau in that region. It is related to the arrival there for the first time by Esau, whom we have known from birth as איש שעיר, “a hairy man.” The name “Edom” also is traced back to Esau. The Torah makes a distinction between the inhabitants of the land Seir traced to Chori, and those traced to Esau. The difficulty with Nachmanides’ explanation is that we do find already in Genesis 14,6 a reference to “Chori in their mountains of Seir.” The chapter in question describes a situation prevailing at least 100 years before Esau was born. Ibn Ezra understands the word חרי as in חרי יהודה, “outstanding men of Yehudah.” (compare Jeremiah 27,20; Nechemyah 6,17)

נפתלי אילה שלוחה, “Naftaly is like a free running doe,” Members of that tribe being fast long distance runners, used to be dispatched to inform the civilian population of whether a battle had been won [or lost, so that they would be prepared for what would follow. Ed.] This is the meaning of the words following: הנותן אמרי שפר, “bearer of good news.” Compare Judges 5,18 ונפתלי על מאומי שדה, “Naftaly running swiftly across the open heights.”There is an opinion according to which the word: אילה does not refer to a doe, but means: “the plain,” as in Genesis 14 6; yet another opinion relates the word to אילן as in אילי הצדק in Isaiah 61,3: “oaks of righteousness.”