Letter to the Editor: Kotnot Or

Sir,

The last issue of JBQ carried an interesting paper dealing with the meaning of kotnot or in Genesis 3:21 (Stanley Schneider and Morton Seelenfreund, “Kotnot Or [Genesis 3:21]: Skin, Light, or Blind?” JBQ 40:2 [2012], 116-124). The authors (on p. 116) mention that “there is even a version that spells the word with an aleph (aleph-vav-resh) instead of the ayin as it appears in the Masoretic Text.” They are referring to the Torah scroll of R. Meir often mentioned in the Talmud. It is notable that the reading aleph-vav-resh is replicated in the Severus Codex, which differed from the Masoretic Text in at least 32 instances. See Hanokh Albeck (ed.), Midrash Bereshit Rabbati (Jerusalem: Mekitze Nirdamim, 1940), 209ff., a Midrash on Genesis, either composed by, or based on, the teachings of Moshe HaDarshan (c. 1050). See also M.H. Segal, “The Promulgation of the Authoritative Text of the Hebrew Bible,” JBL 74 (1955), 46-47. It is doubtful that we have here a scribal confusion of the letters aleph and ayin, since the Ketib-Qere apparatus attests only to the ayin-lamed/aleph-lamed confusion. If a version existed with the reading aleph-vav-resh, it is reasonable to ask how this reading was understood.

I would like to propose that the key to such an understanding is the link between Genesis 3:21 and Genesis 3:17 suggested by the paronomasia between aleph-vav-resh and aleph-resh-vav-resh-he. Having been cursed, Adam and Eve need protection against the consequences of the curse. Thus, aleph-vav-resh should be understood here as being derived from the root arr, “to curse” (Jud. 5:23), and kotnot or are “garments for the curse” (i.e., garments to survive when under the curse). At this point in the story, it would certainly be more important for the reader to know what the functionality of the kotnot was, rather than the material they were made of.

Aron Pinker Silver Spring, MD