The Land of the Hebrews 2

For indeed I was stolen out of the Land of the Hebrews …                               Genesis 40:15

          After interpreting the royal butler’s dream, Joseph asked him to intervene with Pharaoh on his behalf, in order to arrange his release from prison (Genesis 40:14). In protesting his innocence, Joseph told the butler that he had been kidnapped from the Land of the Hebrews.

          Although this is the only time the Bible uses the name “Land of the Hebrews,” the name is not merely one used by Jacob and his family, but is clearly understood by the butler. (Since Joseph thinks the butler will be God’s agent to achieve his pardon, it is obvious that Joseph talked to him in clear terms, which the butler would readily understand.)

          Radak (c. 1160 - 1235) comments that the family of the Hebrews (Jacob’s family) was well known, hence the Land of Canaan was named for them.

          Naḥmanides (1194 - 1270) goes further in his comments, and refers to Jacob’s family as the “greats of the Land and its nobility”, quoting the statement made to Jacob’s grandfather Abraham by the Canaanites, “you are a prince of God among us.” [Genesis 23:6]

          Caftor vaFerech (1282 - 1357) suggests that the Land was endowed with sanctity from the time it was given to the Forefathers, well before the Children of Israel captured the Land in practice.

          Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch adds the following comment: “it is remarkable that already here the Land is called ‘the Land of the Hebrews’. This family must already have been considered so important that the land where they were living was already known as their land.”

          The point is even more remarkable when we consider that the family of Jacob in Canaan numbered fewer than seventy souls, a mere fraction of one percent of the Land’s population, and yet the Land was named for the Hebrews.

          There is a tremendous contrast between Joseph’s approach and current reality. In the darkness of the Egyptian prison, Joseph is unafraid to speak of his Land as the Land of the Hebrews, despite their being an insignificant proportion of the land’s population. Yet, today, when Jacob’s descendants constitute eighty percent of the population of Israel, how many of us living in the Land consider it to be “the Land of the Jews”?

          When we collectively understand that the Land is ours and must be “the Land of the Jews”, with all that implies, our situation will be immeasurably better.