Old Testament

Week 9: Isaac & Jacob

Genesis 24–36

11 November 2021

• R. David Freedman, “Put Your Hand Under My Thigh—the Patriarchal Oath,” Biblical Archaeology Review 2 (1976): 2–4, 42. Freedman, an Assyriologist, explains the unusual practice described in Genesis 24:2, 9.

• C. Houtman, “What Did Jacob See in His Dream at Bethel? Some Remarks on Genesis XXVIII 10–22,” Vetus Testamentum 27, no. 3 (July 1977): 337–51. What was “Jacob’s ladder” in Genesis 28:12? Houtman explains that the most likely meaning of the Hebrew word is stairway.