Deaf Hishām and Esau's Death

Abstract

Abstract:According to a rabbinic tradition, Esau tried to prevent Jacob's burial in the Cave of Machpelah. At first Naphtali rushed to bring a legal solution in the form of the title deed from Egypt, but eventually Hushim the son of Dan killed Esau and thus solved the problem with might. The relationship between the two different solutions is the focus of this article. It first traces the midrashic history of both motifs and demonstrates that originally they were independent of each other. The article then examines in detail the different Jewish attestations of the Hushim account, all of which combine the legal conflict over Jacob's burial and Esau's death by the hands of Hushim. Finally, it studies a Muslim parallel transmitted by al-Suddī, an eighth-century scholar from Kufa. In al-Suddī's version there is a violent conflict with Esau concerning Jacob's burial with no mention of Naphtali and the legal solution. In attempting to determine whether al-Suddī's account reflects adaptation or preserves an old version, I offer a history of the Hushim account, emphasizing the dynamics through which midrashic motifs and traditions were conflated and reformulated.