Hebrew Studies 33 (1992) 167 Reviews 27, the meals prepared by Esau and Jacob are symbolic sacrifices that avert the violence between father and sons. In the Joseph story the brothers dip Joseph's cloak in goat's blood "to save themselves from their father's wrath, but they are too late to save Joseph from their own" (p. 44). Presumably if the brothers had killed the goat earlier in the story, Joseph would have been protected from their violence. Somehow the story of Judah and Tamar resolves the generational and sibling violence in Genesis, since "Tamar ensures that paternal violence never enters her family at all" (p. 47). The reason for the lack of paternal violence in the case of Tamar's sons, however, is that the (legal) father is dead. How this solves the prob lem of the violence of Jacob's sons is left unclear, but somehow "through Judah this family becomes the model for the entire house of Jacob" (p. 49). There are a number of dubious inferences and literary interpretations in this book. Steinmetz claims that "circumcision [in Gen 17] and the thigh wound [in Gen 32]... symbolize the ambivalent nature of paternity" (p. 132), since she believes that Abraham's and Jacob's virility (!) are impaired by these acts. Examples such as this abound. There are also some problems in Steinmetz's understanding of biblical Hebrew: m?$ah?q in Gen 12:9 and 26:8 does not mean "laugh" (as it does in modem Hebrew), hence the analyses of Ishmael's and Isaac's characters based on these verses are mistaken (pp. 79, 88, 90, etc.). Nor is Potiphar's office that of "Chief Slaughterer" (p. 116; tabb?h?m, "guards," occurs thirty-one times in biblical Hebrew), no matter how appealing the symbolism might be. In its cavalier treatment of psychoanalytical/literary theory and the biblical text, this book falls short as a compelling "literary current in biblical interpretation." Ronald S. Hendel Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX 75275 .p"-n " ,D"pn :Ttop tro1? ^?oq nao1? owa [THE COMMENTARIES ON PROVERBS OF THE KIMHI FAMILY]. By Frank Talmage. Pp. 2* + 472. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1990. Cloth. Frank Talmage died, tragically, in 1988 after years of a debilitating dis ease which, nevertheless, did not prevent him from having a prolific