On the “epiphany” in Genesis 12:7

(The above rendering—and footnote—come from the RJPS translation, an adaptation of the NJPS translation. Before accounting for the alternative rendering in the footnote, I will analyze the plain sense of the Hebrew text.)

The root of the two highlighted verbs is ראה with a Niphal stem. The following remarks apply only to this form of the root, which is applied to a persona 63 times in the Hebrew Bible. When I say “this verb,” that is what I am referring to; and I am ignoring the non-personal usages.

When the Bible applies this verb to a persona, it almost always denotes the advent of a communication event. As Hans Fuhs states in the Theologisches Wörterbuch zum alten Testament (published in English translation as the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament = TDOT), this verb “is not a specifically theological term but remains epistemological” (TDOT 13:229). That is, the action that it expresses is contingent upon the recipient’s experience.

Although the root’s meaning involves the sense of sight, less than a third of this verb’s Niphal-stem usages actually correlate with a visual-perception frame. Indeed, in the various depictions of what transpires when this verb form is used, the focus is never on the visuals.

Indeed, in some cases, a visual component is conspicuous by its absence. For example, this verb is used in Gen 35:9 at the advent of a communication between GOD and Jacob (apparently via an unspecified agent). After the message is reported in vv. 10–12, each of the next three verses refers to that location in terms of what occurred there—but by mentioning only the verbal message: הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר אִתּוֹ lit. “the place where he had spoken with him.” If the encounter had indeed included a visual aspect, would it not be mentioned afterward at least once?

Sometimes when this Niphal verb is used, the recipient’s visual perception is clearly not the point:

• In Exod 4:1–5, what is it that GOD claims that the Israelite elders will accept as proof that Moses had the experience described by this verb? A rod that turns into a snake and back again. That is hardly convincing evidence of a visual experience of the Deity.
• In Jud 6:11, an angel “came and sat” near Gideon, which implies that this angel was already visible prior to the application of our verb to the angel in the next verse.

Furthermore, in other instances, a visual epiphany is actually impossible:

• According to Lev 16:2-17, whenever the action described by this verb occurs in the Holy of Holies, it happens only on the other side of a curtain or perhaps through a cloud of smoke, which means that nobody—not even Aaron or Moses—sees something special. See my comment there.
• In 1 Sam 3:21, and in 2 Chr 3:1 (in light of 1 Chr 21:18), an intermediary is involved, which means that the recipient has direct visual experience only of the intermediary.

So if this verb is not pointing to a visual experience, what is it about? Typically it introduces speech, particularly a promise (so Fuhs, TDOT 13:236; and D. Vetter, TLOT 3:1182–83). Many cases involve messaging. Of our verb’s 63 instances, 60 of them (95%) occur in communication situations. (In the remaining 3 instances, the usages are too vague to classify.) In short, our verb belongs to the cognitive domain of communication.

With regard to the various communications that are initiated by God (or an agent thereof), our verb is used only in the depiction of two kinds of communication events:

• those whose content has highly significant implications for the future, or
• those whose advent is unusual—that is, involving considerable effort or exceptional means.

In other words, there is a pragmatic aspect to this verb’s usage; the narrator or speaker uses it to call attention to special communication situations.

The meaning of this verb can be understood only by considering the nature of communication. Before any two parties can communicate, a pair of conditions must be met:

• the first party must signal an intent to communicate; and
• the second party must notice that the other party indeed intends to communicate something.

That is to say, both parties are necessarily involved from the beginning. Communication is established—that is, an exchange of informational content is ready to commence—only when both parties have agreed to communicate.

This verb can denote various aspects of a communication event: the initial hailing call (such as when a telephone rings); or the subsequent advent stage (such as when the two parties say “hello” to each other, or the “handshake” portion of a fax transmission), or the whole event (including the eventual transfer of information). These denotations are logically distinct, yet they are cognitively associated with each other via a well-known communication script. Namely, the hailing stage leads to the advent stage; and both of them enable the intended communication.

More than two-thirds of our verb’s usages denote the advent stage. This denotation must be considered our verb’s conventional meaning. I.e., by default this verb conveys that communication is established between the parties in question.

In a given verse, the plain sense of this verb will be its default meaning—that communication is established—whenever that meaning readily yields a text that is coherent and informative. (This is necessarily so because the human mind, in its construal both of language and of other signals, favors conventional meanings over unconventional ones.) And that is the case in this particular verse.

See further my 2018 article “Cognitive Factors as a Key to Plain-Sense Biblical Interpretation,” section 5 and Excursus 9.

The meaning of this verb is loosely related to gender concerns, in that construing it as an act of God’s visual appearance presupposes that there is something to see—i.e., that God has a body. And bodies, in turn, are presumed to be readable in terms of gender. Conversely, when visual experience is not the point, then the Deity’s gender is likewise not involved.

As for rendering into English, the NJPS ‘appeared’ is quite misleading. However, it was beyond the scope of this project to alter the translation itself. Therefore I have presented my favored rendering as an alternative, in the footnote.

As a matter of English idiom, as in Hebrew, the advent of communication is described in metonymic terms, via recourse to a human perceptual sense. A verb of perception is drafted to express a more abstract event. However, in English the sense involved is not sight but rather touch. We say that the initiator of communication “contacts” or “makes contact with” the recipient, or “gets in touch with” them. Hence my favored rendering of ראה with a Niphal stem, when applied to a persona, is expressed in such terms.