The Sins of the Patriarchs as Viewed by Traditional Jewish Exegesis

The attitude of traditional Jewish exegesis toward the sins of the patriarchs and matriarchs, recounted in Genesis, is an interesting but complex issue. Here we shall address it in the following order: first, the basic facts that the commentators had to deal with; then, two case studies of problematic conduct by the patriarchs and how various commentators evaluated these actions, with the focus on commentaries that react to earlier ones; then we shall consider the issue from the opposite angle, and investigate how two commentators approach the issue.