Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, A Translation with Commentary, W.W. Norton & Company 2018 ( Copyrighted material)
For context concerning Alter's themes, refer to M. Scher's Sefaria Sheet: INTRODUCTION to GENESIS: Robert Alter: Series of Sefaria sheets on Alter and Parshat HaShavua in progress (November 2022),
Parshat HaShavua Lech Lecha 12:1-17
The Koren Jerusalem Bible
(י) וַיְהִ֥י רָעָ֖ב בָּאָ֑רֶץ וַיֵּ֨רֶד אַבְרָ֤ם מִצְרַ֙יְמָה֙ לָג֣וּר שָׁ֔ם כִּֽי־כָבֵ֥ד הָרָעָ֖ב בָּאָֽרֶץ׃
(10) There was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.
[Type-scene in Biblical Narrative, See Alter, Art of Biblical Narrative, revised April 2017]
12:10. And there was a famine in the land
The puzzling story of the sister wife occurs three times in Genesis (here, chapter 20, and chapter 26:1-12). It is the first instance of type-scene in biblical narrative, in which the writer invokes
lived sequence of narrative motifs, familiar as a convention to his audience while pointedly modifying them in keeping with the needs of the immediate narrative context. …The Midrash recognized that the tale of going down to Egypt at a time of famine was a foreshadowing of the sojourn in Egypt … But in contrast to the versions in chapters 20 and 26, here, at the beginning of the whole Patriarchal cycle, the writer
goes out of his way to heighten the connections with the Exodus story … This is also the most compact, and the most archetypal, of the three versions; the other two will elaborate and complicate the basic scheme, each in its own way. (Emphasis added)
(טז) וְשַׂמְתִּ֥י אֶֽת־זַרְעֲךָ֖ כַּעֲפַ֣ר הָאָ֑רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֣ר ׀ אִם־יוּכַ֣ל אִ֗ישׁ לִמְנוֹת֙ אֶת־עֲפַ֣ר הָאָ֔רֶץ גַּֽם־זַרְעֲךָ֖ יִמָּנֶֽה׃
(16) I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, then your offspring too can be counted.
Alter's Text: 13:16 "And I will make your seed like the dust of the earth - could a man count the dust of the earth, so too, your seed might be counted."
[Alter Notes 13:16 and 17 – Readable text; Biblical use of simile, versets indented and interior monologue; and commentary from Yiddish poet Yakov Glatstein.
16. could a man count the dust of the earth.
Unusually for the use of simile in the Bible, the meaning of the simile is spelled out after the image is introduced. Perhaps this reflects the high didactic solemnity of the moment of promise, though the comparison with dust might also raise negative associations that would have to be excluded. (The great Yiddish poet Yakov Glatstein wrote a bitter poem after the Nazi genocide which proposes that indeed the seed of Abraham has become like the dust of the earth.) (emphasis supplied)
17. and he laughed.
The verb yitshaq is identical with the Hebrew form of the name Isaac that will be introduced in verse 19. The laughter here … is in disbelief, perhaps edged with bitterness. In the subsequent chapters, the narrative will ring the changes on this Hebrew verb, the meanings of which include joyous laughter, bitter laughter, mockery, and sexual dalliance.
14:1 And it happened...
... Scholarship is virtually unanimous in identifying this chapter as the product of a different literary source from the three principal strands out of which Genesis is woven. The whole episode is in fact a prime instance of the technique of literary collage that is characteristic of biblical narrative. Abram, having been promised national tenure in the
and in the immediately preceding episode, is now placed at the center of a different kind of narrative that makes him a figure on the international historical scene …. (Emphasis supplied)
Koren text and translation verse Genesis 17:17
(17) Abraham threw himself on his face and laughed, as he said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man a hundred years old, or can Sarah bear a child at ninety?”
(יז) וַיִּפֹּ֧ל אַבְרָהָ֛ם עַל־פָּנָ֖יו וַיִּצְחָ֑ק וַיֹּ֣אמֶר בְּלִבּ֗וֹ הַלְּבֶ֤ן מֵאָֽה־שָׁנָה֙ יִוָּלֵ֔ד וְאִ֨ם־שָׂרָ֔ה הֲבַת־תִּשְׁעִ֥ים שָׁנָ֖ה תֵּלֵֽד׃
Alter text and translation is:
And Abraham flung himself on his face and he laughed, saying to himself,
"To a hundred-year old will a child be born,
will ninety-year old Sarah give birth?"
To a hundred-year-old.
Abraham's interior monologue is represented as a line
of verse that neatly illustrates the pattern of heightening or intensification from first to second verset characteristic of biblical poetry: here, unusually … the numbers go down from first to second verset, but the point is that, as incredible as it would be for a hundred-year-old to father a child, it would be even more incredible for a ninety-year-old woman…to become a mother. … The Abraham who has been overpowered by two successive epiphanies … is now seen as someone living within a human horizon of expectations … he laughs wondering whether God is not playing a cruel joke on him ….
(Emphasis supplied)