Genesis 44 v5 Josephs cup divination

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Eoghan

Puritan Board Senior
John Gill makes the observation that the Hebrew may not mean that Joseph even pretends to an occult practice but rather tests them by the cup. What I would like to know which Arabic version he is alluding to and of which verse?

so the Arabic version, "and indeed he hath tried you by it": so Aben Ezra interprets it of his trying of them by it, whether they were thieves or not, whether they were a parcel of light fingered filching fellows: the cup, he pretends, was set before them, and he turned himself another way, either Joseph or the steward, and they took the opportunity of carrying it off;
 
My best guess would be the Targum Onkelos. It was the authoritative Jewish-Aramaic translation of the Pentateuch. Gill dialogues with it elsewhere in his commentary (see his commentary on Amos 9:7). Ibn Ezra used the Onkelos when determining the meaning of words in the Pentateuch.

"Targum Onkelos The standard, official Aramaic translation of the Torah. Attributed to Onkelos, reputed nephew of the Roman emperor Hadrian and convert to Judaism; 2nd century C.E. The name is probably a corruption of Aquila."

- Sarna, Nahum M. Genesis. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989. Print. The JPS Torah Commentary.

Here is an online link: https://www.sefaria.org/Onkelos_Genesis.1?lang=bi


If interested, here is how various commentators have responded to this verse:

Victor Hamilton:

What makes the cup in Benjamin’s sack so valuable is that it is Joseph’s own cup, and the one in which he practices divination (naḥēš yenaḥēš).15 The force here of the infinitive absolute (naḥēš) before the verb is uncertain; usually it lends extra emphasis to the verb.16
Drinking goblets can be replaced more easily than divination goblets. The form of divination referred to here is oleomancy (pouring oil into water) or hydromancy (pouring water into oil), or the more general term lecanomancy (observing the actions of liquids in some kind of a container). When water and oil are mixed, configurations form which are then studied and interpreted by the diviner. Do the movements portend peace/war, success/failure, progeny/no progeny, recovered health/prolonged sickness, etc.? So important was divination in Mesopotamia that divinatory texts developed into the largest single category of Akkadian literature in terms of sheer number of texts.17
Eating with Hebrews was anathema for the Egyptians. Attempting to ascertain the will of deity by studying the movements of oil and water was not. The first of these was an “abomination” for the Egyptians (43:32b). The second of these was an abomination for the Hebrews (Lev. 19:26; Num. 23:23; Deut. 18:10).18 Only later did the Hebrews “become Egyptian” in their attitude to eating with others. Recall the Samaritan woman’s surprise that Jesus would even drink water with her (John 4:9). But neither the Egyptians nor anybody in antiquity ever “became Hebrew” in their repudiation of divination techniques.


- Hamilton, Victor P. The Book of Genesis, Chapters 18–50. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995. Print. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament.

Kenneth Matthews:

The steward continues the allegation by a second question, referring to the divination cup, although the brothers are ignorant of what he has in mind (v. 5).349 Divination is the practice of foreseeing the future or discovering hidden knowledge. Hydromancy, the art of interpreting the liquids (water) in a cup or bowl, was widely practiced in the ancient Near East (other liquids included oil and wine). The common methods were interpreting the patterns of moving liquids or the patterns of floating objects in the liquid (cp. tasseomancy [tea leaf reading]).350 That Joseph is said to use the cup for “divination”351 (cf. comments on 30:27) is unexpected since this practice is outlawed in Israel (Lev 19:26; Deut 18:10). There is no instance of this practice in the Joseph narrative (cf. comments on 43:33), and since Joseph’s wisdom relies on the interpretation of dreams, it is best understood as part of the elaborate ploy. The importance of the divination cup is its personal ownership by the Egyptian lord (“my cup,” v. 2). By stealing the cup, the steward concludes, “This is a wicked thing you have done” (v. 5). Verse 6 is typical of good Hebrew narrative style, indicating that the messenger carried out his instructions.

- Mathews, K. A. Genesis 11:27–50:26. Vol. 1B. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005. Print. The New American Commentary.

Nahum Sarna:

goblet Hebrew gaviaʿ is probably a loan word from Egyptian ḳbḥ.w, “libation vessel.” It appears in other contexts only in the sense of a container for wine larger than an ordinary cup and as a receptacle for oil in the menorah of the Tabernacle.1 In the present instance, the goblet serves both as a drinking vessel and as a divining instrument (v. 5). The fact that we are told it is made of silver is not meant solely to emphasize its preciousness; the offense would be grave enough no matter what the composition of the goblet might have been. The main point here is that Hebrew kesef, “silver, money,” is a key word, reiterated twenty times in the accounts of Joseph and his brothers in Egypt (chaps. 42–45). The brothers had sold Joseph into slavery for twenty pieces of silver (Gen. 37:28); now he harasses and tests them with silver.

&

he uses for divination It is not stated that Joseph actually believes in divination. He wants the brothers to think he does. The technique of divining by means of a goblet is well known from the ancient world. It took various forms: the use of water (hydromancy), oil (oleomancy), or wine (oenomancy). The practitioner professed to be able to interpret either the surface patterns formed when a few drops of one liquid were poured onto another or the movement of objects floating on or sinking in the fluid. The aim of the exercise was to determine the future, to locate the source of trouble, or to apportion blame or credits, as in 30:27. The legislation in Deuteronomy 18:10 outlawed divination in Israel.

- Sarna, Nahum M. Genesis. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989. Print. The JPS Torah Commentary.


Keil & Delitzsch:

By these words they were accused of theft; the thing was taken for granted as well known to them all, and the goblet purloined was simply described as a very valuable possession of Joseph’s. נָחַשׁ: lit., to whisper, to mumble out formularies, incantations, then to prophesy, divinare. According to this, the Egyptians at that time practised λεκανοσκοπίη or λεκανομαντεία and ὑδρομαντεία, the plate and water incantations, of which Jamblichus speaks (de myst. iii. 14), and which consisted in pouring clean water into a goblet, and then looking into the water for representations of future events; or in pouring water into a goblet or dish, dropping in pieces of gold and silver, also precious stones, and then observing and interpreting the appearances in the water (cf. Varro apud August. civ. Dei 7, 35; Plin. h. n. 37, 73; Strabo, xvi. p. 762). Traces of this have been continued even to our own day (see Norden’s Journey through Egypt and Nubia). But we cannot infer with certainty from this, that Joseph actually adopted this superstitious practice. The intention of the statement may simply have been to represent the goblet as a sacred vessel, and Joseph as acquainted with the most secret things (v. 15).

- Keil, Carl Friedrich, and Franz Delitzsch. Commentary on the Old Testament. Vol. 1. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996. Print.

Calvin:

Whereby, indeed, he divineth.1 This clause is variously expounded. For some take it as if Joseph pretended that he consulted soothsayers in order to find out the thief. Others translate it, “by which he hath tried you, or searched you out;” others, that the stolen cup had given Joseph an unfavourable omen. The genuine sense seems to me to be this: that he had used the cup for divinations and for magical arts; which, however, we have said, he feigned, for the sake of aggravating the charge brought against them. But the question arises, how does Joseph allow himself to resort to such an expedient? For besides that it was sinful for him to profess augury; he vainly and unworthily transfers to imaginary deities the honour due only to divine grace. On a former occasion, he had declared that he was unable to interpret dreams, except so far as God should suggest the truth to him; now he obscures this entire ascription of praise to divine grace; and what is worse, by boasting that he is a magician rather than proclaiming himself a prophet of God, he impiously profanes the gift of the Holy Spirit.

- Calvin, John, and John King. Commentary on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis. Vol. 2. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010. Print.


This is from the entry on Divination in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch:

Hydromancy used the movement of oil drops on water in a cup to give omens. This may have been the method referred to by Joseph (Gen 44:5, 15). A Mesopotamian handbook for reading these omens dates from the nineteenth to seventeenth centuries B.C., around the time of Joseph. Rhabdomancy (or belomancy) involved throwing sticks or arrows into the air and reading omens from their patterns when they landed (Ezek 21:21). Throughout the ancient Near East trees were believed to represent life, which then endowed wood with special powers leading to rhabdomancy and divining rods (Hos 4:12). Many other objects were also used for divination.


-O’Mathúna, D. P. “Divination, Magic.” Ed. T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker. Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch 2003 : 194–195. Print.
 
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Gill is referring to the rendering by the Medieval Spanish Jewish scholar, Ibn Ezra, in his commentary on Genesis 44:5. I'm not sure why he calls it Arabic, since Ibn Ezra is writing in (unpointed) Hebrew. There doesn't seem to be any textual support for this interpretation - it doesn't seem to be in Targum Onqelos or Targum Jonathan, as far as I can see - which seems designed to protect Joseph from the accusation of practicing divination. I'm not sure we need to take the words of his steward at face value anyway.
 
John Gill makes the observation that the Hebrew may not mean that Joseph even pretends to an occult practice but rather tests them by the cup. What I would like to know which Arabic version he is alluding to and of which verse?

so the Arabic version, "and indeed he hath tried you by it": so Aben Ezra interprets it of his trying of them by it, whether they were thieves or not, whether they were a parcel of light fingered filching fellows: the cup, he pretends, was set before them, and he turned himself another way, either Joseph or the steward, and they took the opportunity of carrying it off;
This is just a guess, as I don't know the contents of Gill's library, but the 1657 Polyglot Bible would have made an Arabic version at least theoretically available in England. As I see it, he's referencing both some Arabic version and Ibn Ezra as witnesses for this "trial" translation.
 
I don't buy Gill's interpretation. I think Matthews and Hamilton are closer to the mark. I see two options:

1) Joseph indeed do divination. That's problematic for a patriarch but would seem to fit the behavior of the times. Lot, for example, is called righteous and he unwittingly slept with his daughters. Still, something in me avoids that interpretation.

2) He is playing a mind game with his brothers. This seems apt.
 
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