Texts in Conversation
The Genesis Apocryphon adds a dream to Abram's entry into Egypt, in which a palm tree pleads for a cedar that men have come to cut down. Rabbinic tradition in Genesis Rabbah similarly interprets the palm and cedar of Psalm 92 as Abram and Sarai.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
1Q20 19:1
Genesis Apocryphon
Dead Sea Scrolls
... And I said, ‘Thou art ...’...‘... until now you have not come to the Holy Mountain.’ And I (Abram) departed ... and I travelled towards the south ... until I came to Hebron [at the time when Hebron] was being built; and I dwelt there [two years]. Now there was famine in all this land, and hearing that there was prosperity in Egypt I went ... to the land of Egypt ... I [came to] the river Karmon, one of the branches of the River (Nile) ... and I crossed the seven branches of the River ... We passed through our land and entered the land of the sons of Ham, the land of Egypt. And on the night of our entry into Egypt, I, Abram, dreamt a dream; [and behold], I saw in my dream a cedar tree and a palm tree ... men came and they sought to cut down the cedar tree and to pull up its roots, leaving the palm tree (standing) alone. But the palm tree cried out saying, ‘Do not cut down this cedar tree, for cursed be he who shall fell [it].’ And the cedar tree was spared because of the palm tree and [was] not felled.
Genesis Rabbah 41:1
Aggadah
Rabbinic
“The Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his household with great afflictions over the matter of Sarai, Abram’s wife” (Genesis 12:17). “The Lord afflicted Pharaoh…with great afflictions.” It is written: “The righteous man flourishes like a palm tree; [like a cedar in Lebanon he grows tall]” (Psalms 92:13) – just as the palm and cedar have neither curvatures nor protuberances, so, too, the righteous have neither curvatures nor protuberances. Just as the palm tree and cedar, their shade extends far away, so the reward of the righteous extends far away. Just as the palm tree and the cedar, their heart [trunk] goes straight upward, so too the righteous, their heart is straight toward the Holy One blessed be He. That is what is written: “My eyes are always toward the Lord, as He draws my feet out of the net” (Psalms 25:15). Just as the palm tree and the cedar have desire, so too the righteous have desire. What is their desire? It is for the Holy One blessed be He, as it is stated: “I hoped for the Lord” (Psalms 40:2). Rabbi Tanḥuma said: There was once an incident involving a palm tree that was situated in Ḥamtan, and it would not produce fruit. A certain palm farmer passed by and saw it. He said: ‘This palm is yearning toward Jericho.’ Once they pollinated it [from that Jericho palm], it produced fruit. But might one not argue: Just as vessels are not made from [the wood of] the palm tree, so, too with the righteous? That is astonishing. The verse therefore states: “Like a cedar.” Rav Huna said: There, they do craft utensils from it [palm wood]. And might one not argue: Just as the cedar does not produce fruit, so too the righteous? That is astonishing. The verse therefore states: “Flourishes [like a palm tree].” [Furthermore,] just as the palm has nothing that goes to waste, but, rather, it [produces] dates for eating, fronds for praise, branches for roofing, fiber for ropes, leaves for sieves, large beams for roofing the house, so, too, Israel has no one who goes to waste. Rather, some of them are masters of Bible, some of them are masters of Mishna, some of them are masters of Talmud, some of them are masters of aggada. [Furthermore,] just as with the palm tree and cedar, anyone who climbs to the top of them and does not take care falls and dies, so, too, anyone who comes to accost Israel, will receive his just deserts by their hand. You may know that it is so, since Sarah, because Pharaoh took her for just one night, he and the members of his household were punished with afflictions. That is what is written: “The Lord afflicted Pharaoh…with great afflictions…”
Date: 500 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... This dream is unique to the Genesis Apocryphon and serves an important function in the narrative, explaining the somewhat dubious actions of Abram in the Genesis story. The dream also makes Abram a visionary like Noah earlier in the Genesis Apocryphon. [...] The symbolism of the dream itself seems to come from older traditions concerning Abram and Sarai. The cedar tree is meant to be identified with the patriarch Abram, as the earlier cedar was identified with the patriarch Noah (col. 14, line 9). This cedar, however, is in danger. As Marianne Luijken Gevirtz notes, “The motif of a tree being cut down occurs as a metaphor for disaster, destruction and death in the Hebrew Bible” If the cedar is Abram, then the date palm must be Sarai. In fact, the pairing of these two trees, and the understanding that they symbolize Abram and Sarai, seems to be an old exegetical tradition. The pairing of the trees also occurs in Ps 92:12, “The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.” Rabbinic exegesis understood the pair to stand for Abram and Sarai (M. Tanh. Lek Lekha 5; Zohar to Genesis 12; Gen. Rab. 40:1). In the case of the Zohar and Genesis Rabbah, the rabbis tie the psalm verse to the episode of Abram and Sarai in Egypt (Gen 12:10-20). That is exactly the point in the Genesis narrative where the author of the Genesis Apocryphon uses the same symbolism in the dream vision. The Genesis Apocryphon and the rabbinic literature stem from two different exegetical traditions; thus the fact that the same tradition appears in both corpora indicates its age. ...”
Crawford, Sidnie White
Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times
(pp. 139-140) William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008
* 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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