At this point, we shall recourse to Coats’ outline, cited above, for the analysis of Genesis 35:8. The verse is divided into two, (a) report and (b) place name, with 8a further subdivided into 8aα (death) and 8aβ (burial):
8aα Now Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died
8aβ and was buried under the oak below Bethel.
8b So it was named Allon Bacuth.
(a) Genesis 35:8aα
Some critics regard Genesis 35:8 as an intrusion in the main narrative or a misplaced addition177. However, the fact that the verse begins with a waw consecutive seems to
174 Gunkel (1901:101-102) regards Genesis 35:8 as an addition – a narrative note.
175
Von Rad (1963:332-333) calls 35:8 a brief notice (cf. Arnold 2009:302) and claims that it was a formerly independent tradition from an ancient cultic custom that was inserted into the larger narrative. For Alter (2004:195), 35:8 is a “lonely obituary notice”.
176 Earlier in 4.2.2, we mentioned Coats’ identification of the principal narrative genres in Genesis, which include
saga, tale, novella, report, etc. Further, Coats (1983:10) defines a report as a genre that “shares with history the intention to record without developing the points of tension characteristic for a plot. It is basically brief, with a single event the subject of its record. Again, the accuracy of its reporting does not alter the character of the genre…”
177
See Sarna (1989:241), who claims that the verse does not fit chronologically with the context because Deborah must have clearly greatly advanced in age (cf. Driver 1906: 309 who claims that the notice is “perhaps displaced”;
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suggest a connection with the preceding verse. It is worth noting here that each of the verses in our pericope 35:1-15 in the Hebrew text begins with the waw consecutive. In our estimation, that fact presupposes a narrative progression and, therefore, some degree of textual unity, at least on a syntactic level. It is striking also that all the verses in Genesis 35, with the exception of the opening verses in the genealogy section, vv.23- 24 (which beginwith
ynb
), begin with the waw consecutive.For the first time in the Genesis 35 narrative, a female character is introduced to the reader – Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse. So far, only God and Jacob have played audible roles and appear in the foreground; the other characters seem to remain in the background. Who is Deborah, and why does she feature in the Jacob Cycle? What role could she possibly have played in the broader narrative? The mention of Deborah in this verse calls to mind the unnamed nurse in Genesis 24:59, who left the city of Nahor with Rebekah for the house of her husband, Isaac in the land of Canaan178. The history of interpretation unequivocally identifies that unnamed nurse as the Deborah in Genesis 35:8179. Whereas some interpreters read the phrase
hq"b.ri tq,n,ym
,e
Rebekah’s nurse, tomean the nurse who suckled Rebekah as a child, others regard it as the nurse who was assigned to Rebekah to help her suckle her babies when they would eventually arrive180. We shall attempt to attend to this ambiguity later. At any rate, it is remarkable that the writer of Genesis has chosen to bind the identity of Deborah eternally with Rebekah’s in these two texts.
Westermann 1985:552). Westermann (1987:244) argues that verse 8 is independent of both vv.1-7 and 9-12, 15 but that it would fit better with vv.16-20. Note, however that for Von Rad (1963:333), the brief notice has a tradition behind it that “fits naturally into the narrative”.
178
In that narrative (Gen 24), Abraham’s servant had been assigned to go to Paddan Aram to find a wife for Isaac, his master’s son. The ‘lot’ fell on Rebekah and the story relates that after she agreed to marry the Isaac that she was yet to meet, she set out for her husband’s house with her nurse, who was unnamed in the story, in the company of Abraham’s servant and his men. Rebekah was later to give birth to a set of twin boys, Esau and Jacob, after twenty years of barrenness.
179 See Skinner (1910:425); Driver (1913:309); Keil and Delitzsch (1951:260); Speiser (1964:270); Kidner (1967:148);
Davidson (1979:201); Rendsburg (1984:365); Westermann (1985:390, 552; 1987:245); Sarna (1989:169, 241); Boling (1992:113); Janzen (1993:141); Fretheim (1994:511, 586); Wenham (1994:150, 325); Hamilton (1995:158); Roth (2003:204); Mathews (2005:344, 621) and Arnold (2009:302).
180
For instance, Wenham (1994:150) notes that Rebekah’s nurse was “the nanny who has looked after her from childhood” (cf. Kidner 1967:148 and Sarna 1989:169). See Janzen (1993:141) and Fretheim (1994:586) for the alternative view.
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However, a number of commentators question Deborah’s presence in this particular itinerary since she was Rebekah’s nurse and must have been too old at that time if at all she was alive. As a result, some interpretations hold that the name Rebekah in the verse must have been an error and that it should actually be substituted with Rachel181. While it is legitimate to wonder what Deborah was doing in Jacob’s wanderings, Rendsburg (1984:366 fn), for instance, rightly claims that he fails to see the difficulty in the reading of the name as Rebekah because, “The text does not state that she came with Jacob from Harran to Bethel, simply that she died soon after Jacob's arrival in Bethel”.
Deborah died. Could that be the summary of a life fully lived? Besides the reference to the fact that she was Rebekah’s nurse and the earlier mention of her departure from Paddan Aram with her mistress, nothing else is stated about this woman. Nothing is mentioned of her birth, background, family or relationships; nothing is known of her physical appearance (as is typical of many biblical characters). Her voice was never heard and her thoughts would ever remain a mystery. There is no direct characterization of Deborah, no suggestions about her emotions or feelings. How then could one enter into Deborah’s world? What does her death reveal of her life? Could the fact that Deborah’s death was mentioned while that of her mistress, Rebekah was overlooked182 point to something extraordinary about this life? Sarna (1989:241) points out that, “the demise of a woman is reported only in exceptional cases in the Torah”.
Deborah died after Jacob and his caravan arrived in Bethel, after the episode in which Jacob built an altar to the Lord (35:6-7). Was Deborah residing in Bethel or was she part of Jacob’s company? The latter appears more probable as the narrative does not indicate that Jacob had any relatives residing in Bethel and in verse 16, he and his
181
Fokkelmann (1991:235) claims that he is inclined to change the name Rebekah into Rachel in the text. A similar suggestion, made by Noth (1948:93), is cited in Rendsburg (1984:366fn).
182
Hamilton (1995:378) notes that Genesis records the death of each of the patriarch’s wives except Rebekah’s, and that she must have died while Jacob was away in Aram (cf. Rendsburg 1984:364; Sarna 1989:241 and Wenham 1994:325). Leah’s death also was not on record except for a last minute reference to her burial place on Jacob’s deathbed (Genesis 49:31).
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company moved on from Bethel. Therefore, Deborah died in the midst of loved ones. For the first time in Jacob’s itinerary, death struck, and it struck the oldest member of the troupe. They all had escaped death in Shechem but now the aroma of death was in the way. Deborah died but at a ripe old age.
(b) Genesis 35:8aβ
Deborah not only died, she was buried, and the burial is on record. Deborah got a proper burial. She was buried under the oak, under the shadow of the terebinth tree, away from the shadow of death. She was committed to the earth under the oak, where her spent old body could ‘rest secure’ (Ps 16:9) under the shadow of His wings, where she would be truly free from the uncertainties of the wanderings. For the household of Jacob, under the oak was the place to let go, the place for a final farewell to the matriarch Rebekah’s nurse. For Jacob, the event must have been an anticlimax to the euphoria he had just experienced from the encounter with God. He had to make peace with the fact that it was time for this old pilgrim to go home.
It is significant that the oak under which Deborah was buried was located ‘below183
Bethel’. Westermann (1987:245) suggests that Deborah died near or at Bethel. Now she was buried below Bethel – that same place which was for Jacob a place of paradox, a place of terror and a place of divine encounter, a place of refuge for the fugitive in time of trouble. Jacob had just erected a monument to the God of Bethel, the one who delivered him in the time of his distress. Again, he had to search out a suitable place of rest that would act as a monument for his mother’s nurse. What better place than under the oak of Bethel!
(c) Genesis 35:8b
The reader here learns that the oak acquired a name – the Oak of Tears or the Oak of Weeping (der Tränenbaum or
tWkB' !Ala;;
), which is regarded as an aetiological place- name (Alter 2004:195; Arnold 2009:302). Genesis 35:8b probably tells more about Deborah than the two preceding lines. The name given to the oak apparently testifies to183
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what happened under that oak during Deborah’s interment. The people wept much. So great, so unrestrained, and so memorable was the weeping that the site had to be given a name. According to Westermann (1985:552; 1987:245), the name was to preserve Deborah’s memory in later generations, to remember her long after her death.
Why would the people weep so much for an ‘ordinary’ wet nurse? Why would anyone bother to keep alive the memory of an old maid? What was it then about this woman who stood by Rebekah through twenty years of barrenness when there was no baby to suckle? Why would the people not stand still to mourn this woman who must have dandled Israel on her knees, and who stuck with him in all his wanderings? At a time when Jacob was already estranged from his mother, this same Deborah became his surrogate mother, the one who comforted him in his pain. Perhaps she was no ordinary maid after all. By naming that oak, Israel’s household was declaring to the world, “Deborah means the world to us and we would like the whole world to know it!”
Some scholars claim that Deborah played no role in the narrative (Arnold 2009:302) but Rendsburg’s (1984:365) conclusion is that she played a prominent role in the overall narrative184. We agree with Rendsburg’s conclusion, or else, why would an entire clan stand still to express such palpable grief for “an ancillary character”, for one whose life or presence did not count or make any difference? It is true that nothing else is revealed about her person other than that she was Rebekah’s nurse; but those tears spoke volumes. Deborah uttered not a single word in the Jacob Cycle but her voice could be heard in the weeping of Jacob’s household – and in the whisper of the terebinth tree.