An Introduction to YHWH (Gen 2:4)
The Hinge
4 This is the genealogy of Sky and Earth at their being created אֵ֣לֶּה תוֹלְד֧וֹת הַשָּׁמַ֛יִם וְהָאָ֖רֶץ בְּהִבָּֽרְאָ֑ם
at the time of YHWH God’s making of Earth and Sky בְּי֗וֹם עֲשׂ֛וֹת יְ׳הוָ֥ה אֱלֹהִ֖ים אֶ֥רֶץ וְשָׁמָֽיִם׃
As promised on Thursday, we have two things to talk about in this week’s free post: the introduction to v. 4, and the new name that v. 4 identifies.
This is the genealogy אֵ֣לֶּה תוֹלְד֧וֹת
Those who know some Hebrew will realize right away that élleh is a plural, literally meaning “these,” and that tol’dot is a plural as well, deriving from the root ילד y-l-d ‘give birth’. Perhaps that is why the King James Version translates it as “These are the generations.” We find the word used throughout the first nine chapters of Chronicles in genealogical listings, and elsewhere (for example) in Exod 28:10, where the stones attached to either shoulder of the High Priest’s ephod are engraved with the names of the sons of Israel כְּתוֹלְדֹתָֽם k’tol’dotam ‘in birth order’.
But in Genesis, as I said last time, the phrase “élleh tol’dot …” is a structuring device — or at least a regular occurrence. You will find it 10 times (and just three times elsewhere in the Bible1). Here is how NJPS translates those 10:
Gen. 2:4 Such is the story of heaven and earth
Gen. 6:9 This is the line of Noah
Gen. 10:1 These are the lines of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah
Gen. 11:10 This is the line of Shem
Gen. 11:27 Now this is the line of Terah
Gen. 25:12 This is the line of Ishmael, Abraham’s son
Gen. 25:19 This is the story of Isaac, son of Abraham
Gen. 36:1 This is the line of Esau — that is, Edom
Gen. 36:9 This, then, is the line of Esau, the ancestor of the Edomites
Gen. 37:2 This, then, is the line of Jacob
You’ll notice that eight of the ten (in this translation) are understood to be introducing genealogical “lines” — but for Isaac, as for “heaven and earth,” the same word is translated as “story.” In Modern Hebrew, this is one of the ways to describe a book of history: the history of Arabic literature is תולדות הספרות הערבית Tol’dot ha-Sifrut ha-Aravit (and so forth). In Genesis, too, what follows is not always a genealogy. “This, then, is the line of Jacob” (Gen 37:2) is followed not by the “line” of Jacob but by the “story” of Joseph.
There are two people you might expect to see in this structure who are missing: Adam and Abraham. Adam can be fitted into the scheme because Gen. 5:1 tells us, “This is the record of Adam’s line” (זֶ֣ה סֵ֔פֶר תּוֹלְדֹ֖ת אָדָ֑ם), introducing the birth of Seth; Cain and Abel are in the previous chapter, before the tol’dot of Adam.
But Abraham is also missing here, though his father Terah and both of his first two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, do have tol’dot. So let’s count them up:
3 tol’dot for Noah, his sons, and then for his son Shem
3 tol’dot for Terah and his grandsons Ishmael and Isaac
3 tol’dot for Isaac’s sons, including one for Jacob and two for Esau
The double use of the word, for “story” and for “line,” does make some sense. It is common for a culture’s stories to be built on genealogical lists. If that is what’s happening here — and I have translated it in a way that forces us into that perspective — then the book of Genesis is structured in this way:
From Creation to the Flood
From the Flood to Terah
From Terah to Jacob
From Jacob onward
And that is indeed what we find.
There is much more to say, so we will explore this tol’dot phrase again as it recurs. In the meantime, there are some questions I at least want to put on the table:
Why do the tol’dot of Sky and Earth not introduce Genesis?
How do Sky and Earth fit into the narrative genealogy idea?
Why does the overall structure feature Terah and not Abraham?
And now we continue with our other loose thread.
יְ׳הוָ֥ה אֱלֹהִ֖ים YHWH God
Let me remind you that we don’t know the name of the biblical character who has been creating the world throughout Gen 1:1–2:3. We only know his title: God. Now the second half of our hinge verse introduces the character who will be active in the next story: He who must not be named or, rather, whose name must not be pronounced.
At least, that is how Jewish tradition treats this name, and how I will treat it as well. Not that I actually know how to pronounce it anyway.2 Some contemporary Jews simply replace it by saying Hashem (הַשֵּׁם) ‘the Name’. I intend to use the four English letters YHWH (because Hebrew ו, now pronounced as a v, was more likely a w sound in ancient times). When I quote the Hebrew of a verse that uses it, as you see above, I put in a little mark like this: י׳הוה. That way, what appears is not the actual name, so if anyone prints it out there is no need to put the piece of paper in a genizah.
This change in names is one of the basic elements in identifying the “documents” of the Documentary Hypothesis, at least in the book of Genesis. I’ll talk more about that aspect in a later post, since this one is getting a bit long. Right now, I intend to say just a bit about the name itself.
Scholars often treat this name as originally a verb, from the root הוה, a byform of היה h-y-h ‘to be’, and understand it to be a Hiphil (that is, causative) imperfect: “the One who causes [everything] to be.” When Moses asks God what his name is, he gets an enigmatic reply that points in this same general direction: אהיה אשר אהיה ehyeh asher ehyeh ‘I am what I am’ — and then goes to abbreviate it to just Ehyeh.
Others suggest that the name derives from a homonym of הוה meaning “wind” or from an Arabic word meaning “desire” or “passion.” I’m not enough of a philologist or historian to evaluate these suggestions critically. Fortunately, they matter less for understanding the Bible as we have it than they do for understanding the prehistory of Israelite religion.
In Tuesday’s post for subscribers, I’ll take a long look at the possible implications of the change in names here in the hinge verse in between the two halves of the biblical diptych of creation.
Num 3:1, Ruth 4:18, and 1 Chr 1:29.
I’ll write more about this in a post on my WordPress blog and link to it here when it’s up.