Endnote 1 – Deception for Deception

Genesis 29:26. Several scholars have discussed this irony in various terms: Ephraim A Speiser, Genesis, Anchor Bible (New York, 1964), p. 227; Nahum Sarna, Understanding Genesis (New York: Schocken, 1966), p. 184; Michael Fishbane, Text and Texture (New York: Schocken, 1979), pp. 55ff.; Robert Alter (citing Umberto Cassuto), “Sacred History and Prose Fiction,” in The Creation of Sacred Literature, Richard E. Friedman, ed., (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), p. 23 Fishbane’s discussion of recompense for deception is especially interesting in parallel with what follows here.