In the Yahwist's ancestral history (Gen 12-50), the reader finds a series of barren-wife narratives. These are sometimes looked upon as a literary technique used by the Yahwist to hold the interest of the audience by keeping it in suspense to impart a theological message: God's word is to be trusted and it will be fulfilled. The purpose of the essay is to explore another possible theological purpose: a theological comment stressing that the god Of Israel, not the Canaanite god Baal, was the true lord of Fertility.
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