Genesis17chapter 17

This chapter closes the third portion of the annual cycle, and the portion ends with its last verse (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts). The visit at the oaks opens the next portion on the Sabbath after it.

The commandment of circumcision stands in this chapter, and the eighth day named in its twelfth verse is the day a Jewish boy is circumcised. The corpus shows the practice being argued from these verses. It records the Talmud citing the tenth verse at Kiddushin 29a:11, the eleventh at Jerusalem Talmud Kiddushin 1:7:2, and the ninth and thirteenth at Avodah Zarah 26b:12, 27a:1, 27a:5 and 27a:6. The card above carries the portion and the prophetic reading set beside it.

The corpus holds the English text of two comments on this chapter and the reference alone for twenty two more. Radak is quoted from the CC-BY translation of Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash.

Radak reads the promise of the fourth verse against the name of God given in the first. The One who can change the course of nature is the One who promises, and the promise is of many nations rather than one. He names Isaac, Ishmael and the sons of Keturah as those nations (Radak on Genesis 17:4:1). On the appointed time of the twenty first verse he writes that "we do not know precisely on what date" the vision was given (Radak on Genesis 17:21:1).

Rashi comments on twenty two verses of this chapter, and the corpus holds the text of none of them, because the licence Sefaria reports for that English version keeps it out. They run from Rashi on Genesis 17:1:1 on the name of God to Rashi on Genesis 17:24:1 on the age of Abraham at his circumcision. They cover the new names in the fifth and fifteenth verses and the everlasting covenant in the seventh. They cover the command of the flesh in the tenth to the fourteenth, the laughter in the seventeenth and the promise for Ishmael in the twentieth.

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, thirty under Midrash and ten under Talmud, with the locator for each one and no text. The chapter carries no quoted saying in this corpus, so the references stand here and the sayings are read at the source.

Bereshit Rabbah reads the second verse at 49:2, the fourth at 46:7, the eleventh at 46:10 and the twelfth at 46:11 and 53:7. It reads the fourteenth verse at 46:13, the sixteenth at 47:2, the seventeenth at 45:1 and the nineteenth at 45:8. It reads the twenty first verse at 56:5, the twenty second at 47:6, the twenty third at 42:8, the twenty fourth at 47:8 and the twenty seventh at 47:10.

Aggadat Bereshit reads the first verse at 16:1, the second at 16:2, the third at 11:2, the tenth at 71:2 and the fifteenth at 37:1. It reads the eighteenth verse at 73:1 and the twenty sixth at 19:1. Bamidbar Rabbah reads the first verse at 12:8, the fifth at 14:10, the seventh at 12:4, the eighth at 9:7 and the twentieth at 11:2. Bereshit Rabbati reads the fourth and seventh verses in Parashat Lech Lecha at 35 and 29.

The Talmud weight of this chapter falls on the commandment of the flesh, and six of the ten locators stand on the verses that give it. Beside those, Berakhot 13a:5 is cited on the new name of Abraham, Bava Metzia 86b:13 and 86b:14 on the sixth verse, and Jerusalem Talmud Makkot 2:6:11 on the third.