Texts in Conversation
In Genesis 27, Jacob's disguise shares Pughat's use of concealed identity in the Tale of Aqhat, making clothing a tool for gaining an advantage within a family crisis.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.19 IV:46
Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
May she live! She will strike the one who struck [her brother], finish off the one who finished off the child of […]” […] in the sea she bathed, and she rouged herself with the shell of the sea, whose source is a thousand fields out in the sea. [Underneath] she put on the clothes of a warrior; she put […] in her sheath; a sword she put in [her] scabbard, and over (it) she put on the clothes of a woman. At sunset, the Lamp of the Gods, Shapshu, [went down]; Pughat […] the fields. At the [setting] of the Lamp of the Gods, Shapshu, [she] arrived, Pughat, at the tents. Word was [brought] to Yatpan:
Genesis 27:15
Hebrew Bible
15 Then Rebekah took her older son Esau’s best clothes, which she had with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. 16 She put the skins of the young goats on his hands and the smooth part of his neck. 17 Then she handed the tasty food and the bread she had made to her son Jacob. 18 He went to his father and said, “My father!” Isaac replied, “Here I am. Which are you, my son?” 19 Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau, your firstborn. I’ve done as you told me. Now sit up and eat some of my wild game so that you can bless me.”
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Notes and References
“... The stories about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and his sons in
Genesis 12–50 have broad and specific correlations with the
Kirta and Aqhat tales from Ugarit dating to the fourteenth
century BCE [...] Within this framework of general correlations, the biblical
stories contain specific motifs similar to those found in the
Ugaritic tales. [...] trickery, including use of
disguises (Gen 25:21–33; 27:1–41; 29:24–30; 30:25–43;
31:19–35; KTU 1.19 iv 33–63) [...] The overall range of similarities is such to allow for
positing a cultural affinity between the two bodies of
literature, especially given the geographical, linguistic, and
general chronological proximity of the biblical texts to Ugarit. ...”
Baden, Joel S., Jeffrey Stackert, and Christoph Berner (eds.)
The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch
(p. 729–730) Oxford University Press, 2021
* 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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