Patterns in the music? The genealogy of Terah, Ishmael, and Isaac

One might object that I have found nothing so far. After all, how many shapes of musical line are there and who would hear them if they were similar? 

It's a legitimate concern. But let me give you some examples: 

1. I can imagine Job as a stage play and I can see and hear the narrator using the prose accentuation carefully introducing each pair of poetic speeches.
2. I can clearly hear aurally a sound scape like that in Psalm 96 (performance here). There's no guessing as to what the strophic structure is.
3. Genesis 1 - sung here has an obvious refrain whether said or sung.

But would Genesis be performed in its entirety? Perhaps it would in an aural culture. Would it be performed in its sections? I have taken the verses out of their context. Another question we need to ask is whether there are units that stand alone as a song? 

But first we are still looking for distant patterns. Several of the verses we have looked at so far this month have a unique musical phrase. But snippets of vocal lines are similar - there are, for instance, 8 verses that start with the notes B c d g#. And strangely, Isaiah 38:11 has identical music to Genesis 10:1. These are the only two incidences of this complete phrase in the whole of the Tanach. Perhaps it is coincidence. I suppose that in 23,197 verses, it would not be surprising that there were a few coincidences, and to be fair, we have only just begun to think about musical sequences as an organizing aural component of the Hebrew Scripture.

So following up with my selection of verses for the genealogies that contain the variations on toldot, in this post we look at the father and children of Abraham, Terah, Ishmael, and Isaac. In the next post, we will look at Esau and Jacob: Gen 36:1, 9, and 37:2.

וְאֵ֙לֶּה֙ תּוֹלְדֹ֣ת תֶּ֔רַח תֶּ֚רַח הוֹלִ֣יד אֶת־אַבְרָ֔ם אֶת־נָח֖וֹר וְאֶת־הָרָ֑ן וְהָרָ֖ן הוֹלִ֥יד אֶת־לֽוֹט		27 And these are the successions of Terah. Terah had Abram Nahor and Haran, and Haran had Lot.
cz valh toldot trk trk holid at-abrm at-nkor vat-hrn vhrn holid at-loT	21 7	v/alh tv/ld\t trk trk hv/ld at abrm at nkvr v/at hrn v/hrn hv/ld at lvT

Genesis 11:27 valh toldot trk

The first two bars of this music are identical to the first two of Gen 10:1. So there is some relationship to the successions of the children of Noah. This beginning is not uncommon. It occurs 11 more times in other verses of Genesis. The final four note sequence is common in the prose books, occurring 972 times.

וְאֵ֛לֶּה תֹּלְדֹ֥ת יִשְׁמָעֵ֖אל בֶּן־אַבְרָהָ֑ם אֲשֶׁ֨ר יָלְדָ֜ה הָגָ֧ר הַמִּצְרִ֛ית שִׁפְחַ֥ת שָׂרָ֖ה לְאַבְרָהָֽם		12 And these are the successions of Yishmaeil child of Abraham, that Hagar gave birth to, the Egyptian handmaid of Sarah, for Abraham.
ib valh toldot iwmyal bn-abrhm awr ildh hgr hmxrit wpkt wrh labrhm	13 17	v/alh t/ld\t iwmyal bn abrhm awr ild\h hgr hm/xr\it wpk\t wrh l/abrhm

Genesis 25:12 valh toldot iwmyal

This is a new pattern in my selection of verses. The whole verse is unique. The phrase in the second part of the verse -- after the atnah -- is shared with Genesis 3:21. And the phrase leading to the atnah is shared with 190 other verses of Scripture. Perhaps the action is matter of fact, but the second half has to cover it.

וְאֵ֛לֶּה תּוֹלְדֹ֥ת יִצְחָ֖ק בֶּן־אַבְרָהָ֑ם אַבְרָהָ֖ם הוֹלִ֥יד אֶת־יִצְחָֽק		19 And these are the successions of Yitschaq child of Abraham. Abraham had Yitschaq.
iT valh toldot ixkq bn-abrhm abrhm holid at-ixkq	11 8	v/alh tv/ld\t ixkq bn abrhm abrhm hv/ld at ixkq

Genesis 25:19 valh toldot ixkq

You will recognize the first half -- the shape is identical to the verse for Ishmael. As you might expect, the return to the tonic is very common. It is shared by 8,094 other verses. The shape of this verse as a whole is shared by 7 additional verses. The 8 verses with equal shape do not seem to have anything particular in common.

Genesis is a book about birth (ild). Genesis uses the root for birth 218 times, at roughly 10 times the volume of any other book of the Bible apart from  the recap in 1 Chronicles (108).