[MS: This links to MS Collection of Sefaria Sheets focused on Robert Alter's insights into the Bible's literary style and its meanings.]
Alter's Notes on the parsha use several examples of the Bible's literary style, that was explained by Robert Alter over a lifetime of work.
[MS] In MS words, here is bit of introduction to Alter's major theme: the Bible's literary style and how it tells stories with meanings (revised November 2022)]
Bible's Literary Style: What is it compared to others?
[MS] The Bible's literary style is unique. And so is it's point of view. With its unique Hebrew Bible style, the Bible tells stories and delivers wisdom distilled from the Hebrew/Jewish point of view arising from near-unbelievable Jewish life of about ,000 years.
[MS] The Bible today is often misunderstood and badly translated (or even derided as the irrelevant "Old Testament" superseded by the New), because it doesn't read like a masterwork modern novel, or like Homer's epics or a Greek play. It doesn't have that modern literary style. Moreover, its own themes and its headline concerns, though tested over millennia, are not "visible" to untrained modern readers, so the translation goes in other directions that seem to make more sense - in modern terms.
[MS] Alter has written about this situation for over 40 years, since the 1980s, starting with the famous The Art of Biblical Narrative, then The Art of Biblical Poetry, and in 2011, in the very useful overview The Art of Bible Translation. Finally there is Alter's singlehanded, landmark notes and translation of all of the Hebrew Bible, Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, A Translation with Commentary, W.W. Norton & Company 2018. These and other sources of Alter's works are addressed in the MS Robert Alter Sefaria Sheet Collection.
[MS] Far from being a hodgepodge of thousand years of many texts just stitched together, the Bible is one coherent whole, timeless, literary storytelling text - like no other. It must be read and appreciated in its own terms. Hebrew is now, again, a spoken language (from back in ancient times, as well as in Israel now, as a Hebrew mother tongue.) The Bible's Hebrew text has been dissected by scholars for hundreds of years. Looking at all of that, Alter explains what went wrong, the mangling of the Bible's text, translation or its storytelling meanings.
[MS] Call it a book or a sefer or a collage, it is one whole work. [This is explained in detail in Alter's Introduction to Genesis, in Alters The Hebrew Bible or in excerpts in the MS Sefaria Sheet.] Read with Alter's insights, you find that the Bible is not a "modern" literary work like a novel, but a great work in its own literary style and its own point of view.
[MS} Alter is acutely attuned to Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Midrash and other commentary created over the eons of Jews reading the Bible. He also knows well, and accords greatness, to the landmark 1611 King James Bible. But, despite its influence over modern literature - like in novels by Hemingway or poetry of Joyce - the KJB does not "hear" the Hebrew in the Hebrew Bible and cannot see, nor validate, the Bible's Hebrew (literary style) and how the Bible advocates for its ancient/contemporary Jewish messages, its point of view.
[MS] What kind of messages are delivered in the Bible's Literary Style?
In its unique literary style, the Bible delivers a unique worldview. How could it not - it's thousands of years old in the making. Its been read orally, then written down and then studied for its wisdom unto today. To say it is "epic" is an understatement. The Bible's Hebrew literary style is not just an aesthetic thing of beauty and for lovely amusement. The style is what it is in order to deliver the Bible's point of view. It has these messages about about our lives, among others: defining stories about the Jewish nation and its values; God and individuals or nations; kings and tyrants; a history of humanity in moral terms and what should humanity be doing on Earth; how people endure Fate, and insights about falling in love, lust and marriage, or about loss and madness, hate and tragedy, in souls, families or communities.]
Alter Notes - Excerpts from Parshat VaYayeitze 28:10- 32:3 [MS added formatting and emphasis]
1) [MS - Alter - Literary Style - Word Choices matter
In The Art of Bible Translation, Alter devotes all of Chapter 3 to Word Choices. "Word Choice" is a fundamental element of the Bible's literary style.]
Alter's Note 17 . Leah’s eyes were tender. The precise meaning in this context of the adjective is uncertain. Generally, the word rakh is an antonym of “hard” and means “soft,” “gentle,” “tender,” or in a few instances “weak.” The claim that here it refers to dullness, or a lusterless quality, is pure translation by immediate context because rakh nowhere else has that meaning. Still, there is no way of confidently deciding whether the word indicates some sort of impairment (“weak” eyes or perhaps odd-looking eyes) or rather suggests that Leah has sweet eyes that are her one asset of appearance, in contrast to her beautiful sister.
[MS: Alter refers to this scene p. 67 in the Art of Biblical Narrative as part of a type-scene, discussed in the MS Sefaria Sheet Collection about Robert Alter]
p. 67 It is only at this point that we get a piece of information about Rachel that in the case of Rebekah was announced as soon as the girl arrived at the well: that the maiden was very beautiful. This small difference... illustrates how substantially the same materials can be redeployed in order to make different points. Rebekah’s beauty is part of her objective identity in a scene that she dominates, an item in her pedigreed nubility along with her virginity, and so it is appropriately announced the moment she enters the scene. Rachel’s beauty, on the other hand, is presented as a causal element in Jacob’s special attachment to her, and that, in turn, is fearfully entangled in the relationship of the two sisters with each other and in their competition for Jacob. The crucial fact of Rachel’s beauty, then, is withheld from us until both Rachel and Leah can be formally introduced (verses 16–17) as a prelude to the agreement on a bride-price, and so it can be ambiguously interwoven with the prerogatives of the elder versus the younger sister and contrastively bracketed with Leah’s “tender eyes” .... One can clearly see that the betrothal type-scene, far from being a mechanical means of narrative prefabrication for conveying the reader from a celibate hero to a married one, is handled with a flexibility that makes it a supple instrument of characterization and foreshadowing.
[MS: While many translations use "weak", it is not clear why. [On the Sefatia Translation link, read many translations of rakh.] Alter's choice is "Leah's eyes were tender." The word rakh, often means "soft" but never dull or impaired. Thus Alter rejects that choice of "weak" calling it an error of "pure translation by immediate context" that is, in the immediate context of the sentence itself, verses the literary context of the whole story.
What should guide the translation? The word "rakh" itself doesn't exist in a vacuum; it's part of a story. The rest of the line is: "But Rachel was comely in features and comely to look at and Jacob loved Rachel." This comparison plays out in the whole story. What is compared? Is it about ugly vs physical beauty? Perhaps Leah's tender eyes are her singular, pleasing vulnerable physical feature - but, I suggest something else. Leah is spiritually beautiful with a tender heart. Leah's eyes are a window on a beautiful soul that Jacob, often fooled by appearances, cannot "see" yet. Jacob tricked his father into "seeing" Esau and later Jacob is blind to the woman he marries Leah, not Rachel. A tender-eyed person who can "see" will see his mate. See this theme, in the Note below 29:26 a Midrash, Alter cites.]
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2)[MS: Alter - literary tools - "Type Scenes"]
In this parsha, in the notes, Alter highlights the use of several type-scenes: 29:10 and 29:12 (betrothal type-scene) and 29:31, 30:2 (annunciation type scene)
What is a "Type-Scene" among the tools of the Bible's literary style? [MS See Sefaria Sheet about Alter's type-scenes in the Bible.]
See introductory discussion of a modern type-scene: John Wayne and the Hollywood Cowboy Western, and the Shoot Out, who draws the fastest etc]
3) [MS: Alter's awareness and incorporation of Traditional commentary from the Midrash Bereshit Rabba]
Alter Note Genesis 29:26:
The Midrash Bereishit Rabba vividly represents the correspondence between the two episodes: “And all that night he cried out to her, ‘Rachel!’ and she answered him. In the morning, ‘and, . . . look, she was Leah.’ He said to her, ‘Why did you deceive me, daughter of a deceiver? Didn’t I call out Rachel in the night, and you answered me!’ She said: ‘There is never a bad barber who doesn’t have disciples. Isn’t this how your father cried out Esau, and you answered him?’”
Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary: Three-Volume Set (p. 359). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition. (copyrighted material)