The struggle for a blessing: reflections on Genesis 32:24-31

Ecumenical Review, The, Oct, 1996 by Athanasios Hatzopoulos

NOTES

(1) Gregory offers a passing interpretation of Gen. 32:24-31 in his Homilies on Ezekiel, II, 2, 12-13.

(2) Ibid., II, 2, 12.

(3) C. Westermann, Genesis, Eng. tr. by D.E. Green, Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1987, pp.228-31.

(4) J. Pedersen, Israel: Its Life and Culture, London, 1926, pp.182-212, centres his study of blessing around the concepts of power and life; cf. Irene Nowell, "The Narrative Context of Blessing in the Old Testament", in Concilium, no. 178, 2, 1985, pp.3-12.

(5)Homily on Genesis, XV, 3.

(6) J. Scharbert, "brk", in Theologisches Worterbuch zum Alten Testament, Stuttgart, Kohlhammer, vol. 2, 1973, pp.293f.

(7) J.-M. Husser, Le songe et la parole: Etude sur le reve et sa fonction dans l'ancien Israel, Berlin/New York, Walter de Gruyter, 1994, pp. 116-25.

(8) Commentary on the Song, 11.

Athanasios Hatzopoulos (Church of Greece) is a lecturer at the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey.