THE JPS TORAH COMMENTARY

Genesis בראשית

Commentary by NAHUM M. SARNA

Genesis Commentary © 1989 by The Jewish Publication Society

Masoretic Hebrew text, Codex Leningrad B19A, taken from

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) © 1967/77, 1983, by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart

Synagogue adaptation and revised format © 1989 by The Jewish Publication Society

English translation of the Torah © 1962, 1985, 1989 by the Jewish Publication Society

All rights reserved First edition

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sarna, Nahum M.

Genesis: the traditional Hebrew text with new JPS translation /

commentary by Nahum M. Sarna.

p. cm.—(The JPS Torah commentary)

English and Hebrew; commentary in English

Title on half t.p.: Be-reshit

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-8276-0326-6

1. Bible. O. T. Genesis—Commentaries. I. Bible. O. T.

Genesis. Hebrew. 1989. II. Title. III. Title: Be-reshit.

IV. Series: Bible. O. T. Pentateuch. Hebrew. 1988.

BS1235.3.S325 1989 88-36984

222’ .11077—dc19 CIP

EXODUS ISBN 0-8276-0327-4

LEVITICUS ISBN 0-8276-0328-2

NUMBERS ISBN 0-8276-0329-0

DEUTERONOMY ISBN 0-8276-0330-4

Five-volume set ISBN 0-8276-0331-2

Designed by ADRIANNE ONDERDONK DUDDEN

In the last century, a new way of looking at the Bible developed. Research into the ancient Near East and its texts recreated for us the civilizations out of which the Bible emerged. In this century, there has been a revival of Jewish biblical scholarship; Israeli and American scholars, in particular, concentrating in the fields of archaeology, biblical history, Semitic languages, and the religion of Israel, have opened exciting new vistas into the world of the Scriptures. For the first time in history, we have at our disposal information and methodological tools that enable us to explore the biblical text in a way that could never have been done before. This new world of knowledge, as seen through the eyes of contemporary Jewish scholars and utilizing at the same time the insights of over twenty centuries of traditional Jewish exegesis, is now available for the first time to a general audience in The JPS Torah Commentary.

The Commentary is published in five volumes, each by a single author who has devoted himself to the study of the text. Given the wide range of perspectives that now exist in biblical scholarship, the JPS has recognized the individual expertise of these authors and made no attempt to impose uniformity on the methodology or content of their work.

The Hebrew text is that of the Leningrad Codex B 19A, the oldest dated manuscript of the complete Hebrew Bible. Copied from a text written by the distinguished Masoretic scholar Aaron ben Moses ben Asher, who lived in the first half of the 10th century c.e., the manuscript was completed in 1009 c.e. In this edition it has been arranged according to the weekly synagogue Torah readings. The format has been adjusted to correspond to that adopted by ...