15 - Jewish Reflections on Universalism and Particularism in Genesis

Summary

Already in antiquity Jewish interpreters commented upon the oddity that the Torah, a book centered upon and preoccupied with the laws given at Sinai, contains such an extended prologue. Thus, the following reflection from the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael, an anthology of legal midrashim from second/third-century CE Palestine, comments on why the Ten Commandments are not given in Genesis:

I am the Lord your God: Why were the ten commandments not stated at the beginning of the Torah? An analogy: A man enters a province and says (to the inhabitants): I will rule over you. They respond: Did you do anything for us that you would rule over us? Whereupon he builds the (city) wall for them, provides water for them, wages war for them, and then says: I will rule over you, whereupon they respond: Yes! Yes! Thus, the Lord took Israel out of Egypt, split the sea for them, brought down manna for them, raised the well for them, brought in quail for them, waged war with Amalek for them, and then said to them: I will rule over you, whereupon they responded: Yes! Yes!¹

As one can see, the Mekhilta answers its own rhetorical question with a wonderful parable about how a king who wishes to rule over people must first do things to earn the respect of his subjects. Likewise, God first redeemed Israel from Egypt and also provided the Israelites with manna and quails before asking for their fealty.Similarly, Rashi, the great medieval Jewish exegete, initiates his running commentary on Genesis by asking why the Torah does not begin with the first commandment given to the whole people of Israel, a command that occurs in Exodus 12. Rashi sees the preceding materials in Genesis as necessary so that other nations cannot claim that Israel illicitly stole the Holy Land. Here God’s ownership over creation is stressed as a way to explain God’s right to take land from the Canaanites and give it to the Israelites (see Rashi on Gen 1:1).