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  • From: "Maurice A. O'Sullivan" <mauros AT iol.ie>
  • To: "Charles Rempel" <CharlesR AT mygalaxyexpress.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Isaiah 9:6 Wonderful Counselor
  • Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 15:48:47 +0000

At 15:13 30/12/2004, Charles Rempel wrote:

The words for Wonderful Counselor in Isaiah 9:6 are translated without a
comma in the NASB and with a comma in KJV. I haven't learned the conventions
for writing Hebrew here, so I'll just say that the word for Wonderful is a
common noun masculine singular and the the word for counselor is Qal
participle masculine singular. I know that th Qal participle is used in a
nominative sense and so could be translatd as a separate characteristic of
Christ. Is there anything which would contribute to translating one way or
the other?

Charles:
As recently as Sept of this year, this topic arose on the list.

At that time I pointed out [posting of Sept 14 ]:
***********************************************************
Blenkinsopp, [Joseph, trans. Isaiah 1-39. 19. Anchor Bible, Albright, W.F; Freedman, David Noel. New York: Doubleday, 2000.] chooses the translation " Marvellous Counselor " but footnotes it: >> it is not clear how >pele< ( wonder, miracle ) and >yo'ets< ( counselor) relate syntactically since >pele< is a substantive, not an adjective; the uncertainty is reflected in the versions.<<

Perhaps it was this syntactical puzzle which led the translators of the Jerusalem Bible ( and the translator of the New Jerusalem Bible to follow suit ) to render the four throne names as: "Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty-God, Eternal-Father, Prince-of-Peace"

BTW, I see that the JPS Tanakh (1985 edition and the revised e-edition of 1997) renders 9:5b:
>> he has been named "The Mighty God is planning grace ; The Eternal Father, a peaceable ruler" <<
with a cross-reference to Is. 25:1
************************************************************************************************************************************

Additionally, another posting ( ? from "Harold R. Holmyard III" ) read:


The phrase Karl translates as "Father of Time" (Abi-ad) is interestingly one word in the BHS edition of the Hebrew text, though the lexicons I have do not handle it that way. They divide it into )BY ("father") and (D ("time, eternity").

and on this poinrt, Blenkinsopp writes:
>> >'abi'ad< "Eternal Father", is a rare but not unattested formation ( cf. Hab 3:6 >harere-'ad< "eternal mountains" )


Maurice A. O'Sullivan [ Bray, Ireland ]
mauros AT iol.ie






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