"Your Brother Came with Guile": Responses to an Explicit Moral Evaluation in Biblical Narrative

Whereas moral evaluations presented by characters in biblical narrative have attracted some attention in the literature, other characters' reactions to such evaluations have not been dealt with. The present article seeks to fill in this lacuna.

The different modes of reactions are considered according to three criteria: (1) Who responds? (2) What is the nature of the response? (3) What is the relationship between the evaluation and the response?

The second part of the article is a literary analysis of three narratives from Genesis, starting from moral evaluations expressed by a character in the story: "Your brother came with guile" (Gen. 27:35); "What is this you have done to me?. . . Why did you deceive me?" (Gen. 29:25); "Jacob has taken all that was our father's" (Gen. 31:1).

Finally, an attempt is made to link the three texts and learn something from them about the portrayal of Jacob in Genesis.