Texts in Conversation
The dimming of eyesight appears at the end of three lives in the Hebrew Bible: Isaac in Genesis, Moses in Deuteronomy, and Eli in 1 Samuel. Each uses similar language to describe failing vision, connecting the theme of aging leaders, and pointing to a common literary source behind these accounts.
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Genesis 27:1
Hebrew Bible
1 When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he was almost blind, he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son!” “Here I am!” Esau replied. 2 Isaac said, “Since I am so old, I could die at any time. 3 Therefore, take your weapons—your quiver and your bow—and go out into the open fields and hunt down some wild game for me.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Deuteronomy 34:7
Hebrew Bible
6 He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab near Beth Peor, but no one knows his exact burial place to this very day. 7 Moses was 120 years old when he died, but his eye was not dull nor had his vitality departed. 8 The Israelites mourned for Moses in the rift valley plains of Moab for thirty days; then the days of mourning for Moses ended.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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1 Samuel 3:2
Hebrew Bible
1 Now the boy Samuel continued serving the Lord under Eli’s supervision. Receiving a message from the Lord was rare in those days; revelatory visions were infrequent. 2 Eli’s eyes had begun to fail, so that he was unable to see well. At that time he was lying down in his place, 3 and the lamp of God had not yet been extinguished. Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord as well; the ark of God was also there.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... This section is J. It notes that Moses lives to be one hundred twenty years old, which is the limit that YHWH sets on human life in J (Genesis 6:3). It notes that his eye was not dim; and the expression that it uses for the dimming of the eye occurs only here and in Isaac's blessing of Jacob in Genesis 27:1, which is J, and in the report of Eli's dim eyes in 1 Samuel 3:2 (which, I have argued elsewhere, comes from the same author) ..."
Friedman, Richard Elliott
The Bible with Sources Revealed: A New View Into the Five Books of Moses
(p. 368) Harper San Francisco, 2005
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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