Death Sentences: The Torah's Treatment of Its Major Characters' Deaths

Much can be explored about the deaths of the Torah’s major characters. The Torah’s accounts range from extravagant (e.g., some twenty verses describing the death and burial of Jacob, not counting the preceding blessings given his sons) to unmentioned (e.g., Rachel’s death). This analysis will, with some latitude, focus on the “death sentences” of twelve principal characters – the patriarchs and matriarchs, Ishmael, Esau, and Moses and his siblings. While not arbitrary, this selection is certainly not comprehensive – for example, omitting Jacob’s sons. I am not using “death sentences” in its judicial sense, but rather am referring to the specific, single sentences in which the fact of death is (or is not) reported, and excluding the fuller context in the surrounding narrative.

The deaths of these protagonists can be grouped according to four articulations: “gathered to his kin” (vayeasaf el amav), “died” (vayamot), “died there” (vayamot sham), and not recounted at all. The choice of language in the death sentence or its omission is hardly random. Rather, the text is grouping characters by its report of death in order to add texture to those individuals and our understanding of their relationship to each other.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Ishmael

The death sentences of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Ishmael share the common element of being gathered to their kin. It is, of course, the presence of Ishmael in this equation that is most interesting; that the three patriarchs would be reported similarly is hardly surprising. But not only is Ishmael included, he is an element in a pattern that suggests the relative positioning of these individuals.

Abraham’s death is recounted rather elaborately: And Abraham [breathed his last], [dying] [at a good ripe age], [old and contented]; [and he was gathered to his kin] (Gen. 25:8).¹ There are five elements in this description as demarcated by the brackets. Four of the five appear in Isaac’s death sentence, which reports that Isaac …[breathed his last] [and died]. [He was gathered to his kin] [in ripe old age]; and he was buried by his sons Esau and Jacob (Gen. 35:29).² Three occur with Ishmael: These were the years of the life of Ishmael: one hundred and thirty-seven years; then [he breathed his last] [and died], [and was gathered to his kin] (Gen. 25:17).³ And two with Jacob: When Jacob finished his instructions to his sons, he drew his feet into the bed and, [breathing his last], [he was gathered to his people] (Gen. 49:33).⁴ Astonishingly, Ishmael is accorded a greater congruity with Abraham’s death than Jacob.

If we broaden our parameters a bit to include the adjacent year counts for Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael – and include Sarah’s as well – we find another indication of the text’s recognition of Abraham’s bond with Ishmael. As in the former case, Abraham’s life is summarized most elaborately (Gen. 25:7) as “yemei shenei hayei” (the days of the years of the life of). Ishmael (Gen. 25:17) is accorded two of these terms – “shenei hayei.” Isaac and Sarah each receive one – “yemei” for Isaac (Gen. 35:28) and “hayei” for Sarah (Gen. 23:1). So, by this measure, Ishmael is given the preference as firstborn.

The setting of Ishmael in these sequences sharply contradicts the later attitudes that developed toward him. If we strip away from our consideration of Ishmael the postbiblical defamation of his character, the order in these two patterns is less surprising. The death sentences order the characters generationally, placing the father (Abraham) first, then the sons in their order of importance (Isaac and Ishmael) relative to the Covenant, and finally the grandson. In contrast, the count of the lives reflects Ishmael’s primogeniture. While God, Sarah, and the Genesis narrative immediately recognize that Ishmael will not be the inheritor of the Covenant, I find no evidence that Abraham himself distinguishes between his sons until after the Binding of Isaac, at which point there can no longer be doubt.

The Curious Matter of the Matriarchs . . . and Esau

If the deaths of the patriarchs are described similarly, we might expect the same of the matriarchs. But that is not the case. Rather, the matriarchs span two of our categories: those described simply as “she died” (vatamot) and those whose deaths are not recounted at all.

In the former group, we find Sarah – Sarah died in Kiriath-arba – now Hebron – in the land of Canaan; and Abraham proceeded to mourn for Sarah and to bewail her (Gen. 23:2)⁵ – and Rachel – Thus Rachel died. She was buried on the road to Ephrath – now Bethlehem (Gen. 35:19).⁶

In the latter, Rebecca and Leah pass without mention. Rebecca and Leah’s deaths are obliquely referenced by Jacob as he gives instructions for his own burial in the Cave of Makhpelah: there Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried; there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried; and there I buried Leah (Gen. 49:31). It is worthy of note that Jacob’s statement is formulated rather oddly. One might expect that he would refer to Rebecca as his mother, rather than as Isaac’s wife. But that not being the case, the parallelism between Sarah and Rebecca’s treatment would demand that he refer to Leah as his wife as well (i.e., “there I buried my wife Leah”). The actual formulation could suggest an emotional distancing from Rebecca and Leah.

The case of Rebecca is more curious still. While her death is not recounted, we do find the death of her nurse, Deborah, described with “she died” (Gen. 35:8), similarly to Sarah and Rachel. There are many characters in the Torah whose deaths are not reported, but with Deborah we have a non-character whose death is. It seems reasonable to infer, as did Bereishit Rabbah 81:5, that Deborah’s death is reported as a substitute for the unmentioned death of Rebecca.

If, for a moment, we accept Deborah as a stand-in for Rebecca, then the simply recounted deaths of the matriarchs include one of each generation, i.e., Sarah for Abraham, Deborah (representing Rebecca) for Isaac, and Rachel (representing Leah as well) for Jacob. In essence, the Torah gives notice to the deaths of the matriarchs in each generation by some mention in the moment, and then rounds it off with Jacob’s report of the others in Genesis 49:31.

It remains, though, unsatisfying that the deaths of Rebecca and Leah are not actually described. The explanation may lie in considering the unaccounted death of Esau. Esau is a relatively significant character – in terms of the narrative certainly on par with Ishmael. Moreover, Genesis 36 delineates Esau’s family tree in great detail. The omission of Esau’s own death is striking – the more so as verses 33-39 catalogue the deaths of the kings descended from him (not dissimilar to the unusual mention of Deborah’s death in lieu of Rebecca’s).

Put another way, the unreported deaths of Rebecca, Leah, and Esau, are the deaths of Jacob’s mother, Jacob’s first wife, and Jacob’s brother. Doubtlessly, Jacob’s relationships with Leah, his unloved wife, and Esau, his rival for birthright and blessing, were deeply flawed. It is not unreasonable to surmise that his relationship with his mother was troubled as well; after all, she induced him to deceive his father – an act for which he suffered a lifetime of retribution, beginning with his exile to Haran, followed by a myriad of deceptions by sight (e.g., the substitution of Leah for Rachel; Rachel’s hiding of her father’s idols, which ultimately resulted in her death; and the blood-covered coat that led him to mourn Joseph for many years). Rebecca’s conception of the deception may well have made her death unworthy of mention.

The moral calculus in the Bible is often complex, and that seems so with Rebecca, Esau, and Leah. Jacob usurps Esau’s birthright and blessing. He withholds love from Leah. He enacts Rebecca’s plan for the deception of Isaac. Jacob arguably damages (or perhaps is damaged by) them all; it is not pretty. And yet, Jacob is Israel – the father of the tribes, of the nation. The harm done to Rebecca, Leah, and Esau in their lives relative to Jacob – deserved or not – does harm to their legacies; they die unnoticed by the narrative.

Moses, Aaron, and Miriam

The passing of Moses, his brother Aaron, and his sister Miriam are reported with the same language of “died there” (vayamot/vatamot sham):

The Israelites arrived in a body at the wilderness of Zin on the first new moon, and the people stayed at Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried there (Num. 20:1).

Moses stripped Aaron of his vestments and put them on his son Eleazar, and Aaron died there on the summit of the mountain. When Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain . . . (Num. 20:28).

So Moses the servant of the LORD died there, in the land of Moab, at the command of the LORD (Deut. 34:5).

These are the principal Torah characters whose entire lives were lived in exile.

Deuteronomy 26:5 instructs regarding the liturgy on entering the promised land: You shall then recite as follows before the LORD your God: “My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there (vayagar sham); but there he became a great and very populous nation.” After generations of exile and servitude in Egypt, the vayamot/vatamot sham of Moses’s family’s deaths provide the counterpoint to vayagar sham. They died there – that is, outside the land of Canaan. The text is careful to catalogue where “there” is in each case: Kadesh for Miriam, the summit of the mountain for Aaron, and the land of Moab for Moses.

Ultimately, death outside of Canaan represented the punishment of not entering the land. As to Moses and Aaron, the reason is abundantly clear in the report of Numbers 20:12 following Moses striking the rock: But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust Me enough to affirm My sanctity in the sight of the Israelite people, therefore you shall not lead this congregation into the land that I have given them.”

The case of Miriam is less apparent. Interestingly, it is reported just eleven verses earlier, immediately before the rock-striking episode. The striking aspect of Miriam’s death is its spartan, one-verse report. The deaths of Aaron and Moses are described at much greater length (Num. 20:23-29 and Deut. 34:1-12).⁷ Both of these accounts report the thirty days of public mourning that followed their deaths. In Miriam’s case, there is no such report. Attenuating the loudness of this silence is the episode of Miriam’s leprosy in Numbers 12. Verse 15 notes that Miriam was isolated outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not march on until Miriam was healed and purified. The journey of the entire people was delayed for her quarantine, but for her death, nothing.

The only known sin of Miriam is this very episode, in which she and Aaron speak ill of Moses’s wife. Interestingly, it is only Miriam who is punished for it. Aaron appears to enjoy an immunity from punishment as he did following the Golden Calf episode and the eating of offerings following Nadav and Abihu’s deaths, becoming accountable only for Moses’s own sin of the rock. Whether for the specific sin of her denigration of Moses’s wife or simply the general punishment of death in the desert applied to the entire nation following the Golden Calf, Miriam’s death, like those of Moses and Aaron, must be regarded as punishment.

Tangentially, there are two other aspects relating to the deaths of this family that bear mention, though outside the immediate death sentences.

First, while the death sentences of Moses and Aaron do not use the phrasing of “gathered to his kin,” the general accounts of both do include the wording – Numbers 20:24 for Aaron and Deuteronomy 32:50 for Moses. Thus, there is an analogy drawn to the deaths of the patriarchs, as befitting the great leader, Moses, and the progenitor of the priestly line, Aaron.

There is a second harking back to the death of Abraham in the lineage of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. Aside from Abraham, Sarah, and Ishmael noted above, I find three more uses of shenei hayei to describe the lifespan of Torah characters: And these are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations: Gershon and Kohath, and Merari. And the years of the life of Levi were a hundred thirty and seven years (Ex. 6:16). And the sons of Kohath: Amram, and Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel. And the years of the life of Kohath were a hundred thirty and three years (Ex. 6:18). And Amram took him Jochebed his father’s sister to wife; and she bore him Aaron and Moses. And the years of the life of Amram were a hundred and thirty and seven years (Ex. 6:20). So, the lives of the father, grandfather, and great-grandfather of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam are accorded the same language as Abraham’s firstborn, Ishmael.

Conclusion

The characterization of the deaths of the Torah’s major personalities add texture to their lives and their legacies. There is far more to life than death. So too, the portrayal of the characters’ deaths is neither summation nor verdict. But it also is not random or casual. The biblical text has employed specific renderings to compare and contrast the protagonists. The patriarchs and Ishmael have, in a sense, been ranked in relation to Abraham; the mothers and Esau in their relationship to Jacob; and Moses, Aaron, and Miriam in their relation to the Land of Canaan.

The starkest, harshest death sentence in the Torah is one not previously considered here – that of Joseph. The final verse of Genesis (50:26) reports, Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years; and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt. Unburied and unmourned in the account, there is a foreboding double-entendre in the final words “in a coffin in Egypt” (ba-aron bimitzrayim), which can be read as “in a coffin in Egypt” (i.e., “in a coffin that was located in Egypt”) or as “in a coffin, in Egypt” (equating Egypt itself with the coffin – i.e., “in the coffin that was Egypt”). The death and eventual burial of Joseph is deserving of its own study, but this sentence is crushing.

Of the protagonists discussed here, none are judged so mercilessly in their death sentences as Joseph – and even Joseph undoubtedly stars in the Torah as an outstanding figure. In their commonalities and distinctions, the representation of the characters’ deaths deprives us of the convenience of marking them as simple heroes or villains. As so much else in the biblical narrative, it forces us to understand the moral complexities not only of the actors, but of the world we inhabit to this day.