“Boiled” — the same word used earlier by Deuteronomy — need not nec-
essarily mean “boiled in water,” this passage suggests; instead, it might just
be a circumlocution for roasting, that is, “boiling in fire.” If so, then there
really was no contradiction between the Exodus and Deuteronomy pas-
sages — both of them really meant “roast”; it was just that Deuteronomy
had, for some reason, not used that word explicitly.
Another little problem found within an early book of the Bible was
addressed by a later one; this time, the issue concerned the inheritance
rights of the firstborn son. According to biblical law, the firstborn son was
to receive a larger portion of his father’s estate — just because he was the
firstborn. But what happened if the father had two wives and wished to
give precedence to the son of his other wife, even though that son was not
his first? This was probably not an uncommon situation, since the law in
Deuteronomy is quite emphatic:If a man has two wives, and one of them is favored over the other, and
if both the favored one and the other have borne him sons, the first-
born being the son of the disfavored one; then on the day when he
wills his possessions to his sons, he is not permitted to grant the son of
the favored wife preference over the son of the other, who is the first-
born. Instead, he must acknowledge as firstborn the son of the one
who is not favored, giving him a double portion of all that he has;
since he is the first issue of his virility, the right of the firstborn is his.
(Deut. 21:15-17)The firstborn son is to get the double portion no matter how the fa-
ther feels about the boy’s mother. But if so, then how does one explain
what happened in the biblical story of Jacob and his sons? Jacob marries
Leah and Rachel, but it is clear from the start that Rachel is his favorite
(Gen. 29:17-18). Nevertheless, Reuben, Leah’s son, is Jacob’s oldest boy,
so by rights the double portion is to be his. As things turn out, however,
Reuben gets pushed aside: it is Joseph, Rachel’s son, who effectively ends
up with the extra inheritance (Gen. 48:5-6). To later readers of Scrip-
ture, this surely seemed to be a blatant violation of biblical law. To make
matters worse, Reuben kept being referred to as Jacob’s “firstborn”
(Exod. 6:14; Num. 1:20; 26:5; etc.). Was he — and if so, why did he lose
his inheritance?
Once again, the author of Chronicles went out of his way to explain an
apparent contradiction in the text:161Early Jewish Biblical InterpretationEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:04:00 PM