Eliezer and the promised heir

Abram says, “O Lord GOD, what can You give me, since I remain childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” The Hebrew order is Damascus, then Eliezer (דַּמֶּשֶׂק אֱלִיעֶזֶר). Verse 3 restates the point: “You have given me no offspring, so a servant in my household will be my heir.” Driver writes, “The Heb. is very peculiar:” and “There seems to be some corruption in the text.” Skinner holds that the phrase “is absolutely unintelligible” The Targum has “and Eliezer the manager (bar pharnasath, the son of sustenance) of my house, by whose hands signs were wrought for (or to) me in Darmasek, expects to be my heir?” Jubilees has “is the Dammasek Eliezer:” Those readings are attributed; no ruling is given on the crux. The Lord answers, “This one will not be your heir, but one who comes from your own body will be your heir,” and promises offspring like the stars (see Gen 15:5 → Gen 13:16 and Gen 15:5 → Gen 22:17). The persons are real; God promises Abram an heir from his body. Driver holds of verse 3 that “The verse repeats the substance of v. 2, and reads as though it were introduced from a parallel narrative.”; source questions are pointed once to Reading Genesis 2:4–25 alongside Genesis 1: from Josephus and Philo to Keil, Driver and Skinner and are not argued here. See Childless, and “the son of the mesheq of my house”.