Commentary: On Genesis

Joseph Bekhor Shor

On Genesis 18:2, 22:8

Late 12th Century

He lifted up his eyes and looked, and he saw three men standing over against him. When he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door and bowed down to the earth, [and said . . . ] (Genesis 18:2)

He lifted up his eyes and looked, and he saw three men. The straightforward sense is that they were actual human beings, for we do not find that…

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In the first excerpt here, Joseph contrasts the plain sense of the verse with the rabbinic interpretation and announces that the rabbinic understanding of this verse should not be shared with “heretics” (i.e., Christians). In the second, he addresses Isaac’s knowledge of his own impending sacrifice at the altar, seeming to exculpate Abraham from an apparently deliberate lie to his son.

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Related Guide

Early Medieval Bible Translations and Commentaries

7th to 12th Century

Creator Bio

Joseph Bekhor Shor

b. ca. 1140

Joseph ben Isaac Bekhor Shor was an exegete, Tosafist, and poet born in Orléans, in northern France. He was a student of Jacob ben Meir (Rabbenu Tam), and a written exchange between the two survives in the latter’s Book of the Upright (Sefer ha-yashar). Joseph composed a Hebrew commentary on the Torah and on the Psalms. His approach was generally focused on the peshat (plain meaning) of scripture, though less rigidly than other twelfth-century northern French figures. Joseph’s commentaries also contain significant anti-Christian polemics. His name appears in printed Tosafot on the Talmud, and he composed several piyyutim (liturgical poems) that address the calamities of his day.

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