Chronological and Thematic Order/0

Chronological and Thematic Order

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Introduction

When recording history, an author must always balance the competing elements of chronological and thematic order.  The Biblical text sets chronological order as the norm, but in a number of instances it is willing to sacrifice it for literary reasons.  In several places in Torah, this achronology is explicit in the text.  Time or location markers such as people's ages, a switch of locale, or more rarely, definitive dates, clue the reader into the phenomenon.  More often, though, the true timing of scenes is ambiguous.  For textual or conceptual reasons a case might be made for achronology, but no definitive proof can be found in the text.

Explicit Cases

Two Units Reversed  – At times, two textual units completely swap places with one another, appearing in reverse order.  An example may be found in the opening of Sefer Vayikra:

• Laws of Sacrifices in Vayikra 1-5 and 6-7 – Vayikra 1:1 teaches that the laws of national sacrifices discussed in Chapters 1-5 were all said to Moshe in the Tent of Meeting.  In contrast, the directives of Chapters 6-7, aimed at the priests, were given earlier at Mt. Sinai (see Vayikra 7:37) and relate to to the sacrificial ceremonies surrounding the Tabernacle's consecration.¹ It is possible that the written account flips the true chronology due to the differing needs of the desert generation and the future nation.  In the desert, Moshe first transmitted the laws relating to priests since these were necessary for them to fulfill their immediate tasks.  When writing for generations, however, it was more important to begin with those laws which are relevant for all times, and only afterwards to include directives related to the one time event of the Mishkan's consecration.

Overlapping Units – When a textual unit takes place over an extended period of time, often some of its components might overlap with the events of surrounding stories.  Instead of constantly switching back and forth between the two, the Torah often completes one narrative unit (השלמת הענין) before moving to the other.  Several examples follow:

 

• Death notices – The lives of the main protagonists discussed in Sefer Bereshit often overlap with those of subsequent characters.  Nonetheless, the text is organized so that it focuses on only one leader at a time, and tries not to interrupt his story with events that only relate to other figures.²  As a result, even though the death of a character might only happen during the life of his son, it will be mentioned earlier, as a conclusion to the father's own cycle of stories.³ 
• The manna  – Shemot 16 focuses on the story of the manna's arrival in the first year, but also mentions its later preservation in the Ark, and its being eaten throughout the forty years of wandering.⁴ Rather than interrupting later narratives to share these events in their chronological place, the text concludes the story here.  For a spectrum of opinions regarding the timing of the specific events mentioned in the epilogue, see Epilogue to the Manna Story.
• The censuses of Sefer Bemidbar – Sefer Bemidbar opens with a series of dated, and explicitly achronological events: 1) Chapters 1-4 speak of censuses taken in the second month of the second year. 2) Bemidbar 7:1-3 goes back in time to the dedication of the altar in the first month. 3) Bemidbar 9:1-2 continues with the Pesach in the first month and 4) Bemidbar 10 brings the reader back to the middle of the second month with the nations' travels.⁵  Though the opening chapters really occur in between the events of Chapters 9 and 10, including an extensive lists of censuses there would break up the main narrative of the book. As such, the Torah preferred to incorporate the non-narrative material as an introduction to the book,⁶ and start the main plot line in Chapter 7.⁷
• Yehuda and Tamar – Both the Yosef saga and the story of Yehuda's initial marriage and relationship with Tamar span many years and overlap with each other.  The chronological order of the various events appears to be: a)  Yehuda's marriage to Bat Shua (Chapter 38:1-11)⁸ b) the sale of Yosef (Chapter 37) c) Yosef's rise to power in Potiphar's house (Chapter 39)⁹ d) Yehuda and Tamar (Bereshit 38:12ff)  e) the rest of the Yosef story.  To preserve continuity in each story, the Torah separates the two sagas rather than interweaving one into the other.¹⁰  It opens with the events occurring in Canaan¹¹ and then moves to those happening in Egypt.¹² 
• Genealogy list of Bereshit 11

 

Overlapping Units – Ambiguous Cases

• Avraham's Aliyah – Hashem's command to Avraham that he leave his birthplace (לֶךְ לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ) is found first in Bereshit 12:1, yet Avraham and his family already uproot from Ur Kasdim at the end of Chapter 11.  This leads commentators to question whether Hashem's command is really in its chronological place, or if it was delayed so as to first finish the Terach cycle of stories and only then open the Avraham narratives. For a full discussion of the issue and its implication for understanding Avraham's move as a whole, see Avraham's Aliyah.
• Covenant between the pieces – 
• Avraham's marriage to Ketura - Bereshit 25:1 describes Avraham's marriage to  Ketura, which according to the simple chronology of the verses takes place after Sarah's death and Yitzchak's marriage, when Avraham is over 140 years old!¹³  The incongruity of his marrying and bearing children at such an advanced age makes readers question the chronology of the event.  Is it possible that here too, the event occured earlier, but is only recorded as part of the epilogue to the Avraham stories so as not to interrupt the main narrative? See Avraham's Many Wives for a variety of opinions on the timing of the incident.
• Yitzchak in Gerar
• Birth of Yaakov's children – Bereshit 39-30 speaks of the births of Yaakov's first 12 children, seven from Leah alone. A simple read of the story allocates slightly more than six years for all these births, but also includes a hiatus in which Leah was not able to conceive at all.  This makes one question the chronology of the story as a whole and the relationship between the births of each mother.  Is it possible that some of the pregnancies/births overlapped, but so as not to confuse the reader the Torah presented them as consecutive events?  See The Births and Relative Ages of Yaakov's Children for elaboration, and how the issue also relates to the ages of Shimon and Levi during the massacre of Shechem.
• Blessing toMenashe and Efraim
• Command to Yehoshua after war of Amalek – After the battle of Amalek, Hashem tells Moshe to record the event for posterity in the "book" and to speak to Yehoshua about wiping out Amalek.  Ibn ezra poists that this was first commanded in the fortieth year, by which point it was known that Yehoshua alone was to head the conquest and that the "book" refers to the Sefer Torah which was by then extant.¹⁴  The statement is only recorded here to finish the story. 
• YItro
• Shemot 24
• Mishkan
• Bemidbar 21

¹ As such, they are really an extension of the discussion of the Miluim ceremony relayed in Shemot 29.  See R. D"Z Hoffmann who makes this point.

² This is not to say that Avraham may not play a role in any Yitzchak narrative, but only that if a certain event relates only to the life of Avraham, even if it happened at the same time as events being told that concern Yitzchak, it would not appear there in the text but rather earlier during the "Avraham cycle" of narratives.

³ For examples, see mention of the death of Noach in Bereshit 9:29, Terach in Bereshit 11:32, Avraham in Bereshit 25:8, and Yitzchak in Bereshit 35:19.

⁴ As such, the story basically overlaps with the rest of Torah.

⁵ In other words, to reflect the true chronology, the chapters should have been ordered: a) Chapters 7-9 b) Chapters 1-6 c) Chapters 10ff.

⁶ Chapters 5-6 comprise undated legal material and are thus appended to the census.

⁷ Cf. Ramban who views the entire unit from 1-8 as an epilogue to Sefer Vayikra, as the chapters deal with odds and ends relating to the Mishkan.  According to him, the true narrative of the book begins only in Chapter 9, when the nation begins to prepare for its travels, and that is where chronological order takes over. 
Rashi, in contrast, suggests that one should view this change in order not as a bringing forward of that which occurred later, but a pushing off of that which occurred earlier.  He claims that Hashem did not want to begin Sefer Bemidbar with information that reflected derogatorily on the nation and thus delayed discussion of the Paschal sacrifice.  [Following -- , he asserts that this is negative because it highlights how the nation only brought the sacrifice once in the forty years of wandering. It is difficult, however, to view the actual fulfillment of the commandment as negative.]
Finally, see Abarbanel who tries to claim, that in reality there is no achronology in the text at all. 
[[??Cf. Cassuto and Censuses in the Wilderness who suggests that the census described in Chapter 1 is really identical to that described in Ki Tisa which took place in the first year and the verses here are simply describing its conclusion in the second year. He would still have to provide a literary reason to explain why the conclusion appears here rather than after Chapter 9.]  Seforno

⁸ Among the people listed in Bereshit 42 as going to Egypt are Yehuda's great-grandchildren, Chezron and Chamul.  As there are only 22 years between the sale of Yosef and the descent [Yosef is 17 when sold, 30 when he stands before Paroh, and 39 when the family comes down (seven years of plenty and two years of famine pass)], it would be very hard to assert that Yehuda's marriage is in its chronological place.  See Ibn Ezr ad Ralbag who suggest that the opening of the chapter "וַיְהִי בָּעֵת הַהִוא" hints to the reader that the events actually happened earlier.  Cf.Seder Olam Rabbah who nonetheless does attempt to maintain chronological order and suggests that each generation bore children at the age of seven.

⁹ See how Bereshit 39:1 resumes right where Bereshit 37:36 left off.

¹⁰ undefined

¹¹ One might have thought that the Torah should separate the two stories totally, first telling the Yehuda and Tamar tale and only afterwards speaking of the sale and the rest of the Yosef narratives. It is possible that the Torah did not want to open with Yehuda's marriage since the Bat-Shua story is not important in and of itself, and only comes to serve as an introduction to the main story of Yehuda and Tamar which occurred later. As such, the Torah begins chronologically, with the first event of import, the sale of Yosef.
Others suggest that the Torah had other calculations.  Ibn Ezra posits that the Torah wanted to juxtapose the story of Yehuda and Tamar with that of Yosef and Mrs. Potiphar so the reader can compare how each character dealt with the attempted seduction. 

¹² As such, the events in Potiphar's house are only told after the Yehdua and Tamar story, despite their occurring earlier.  Otherwise the narrative of Yosef's life in Egypt would be interrupted.

¹³ We know from Bereshit 25:20 that Yitzchak was 40 when he married Rivka. Thus, since Avraham was 100 when Yitzchak was born, Avraham would be at least 140 when he married Keturah.

¹⁴ Cf. Rashi