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b-hebrew - [b-hebrew] Genesis 37:32 Re: They did not bring! - They had it brought.....! (Laziness in English translations)?

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Genesis 37:32 Re: They did not bring! - They had it brought.....! (Laziness in English translations)?
  • Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 22:13:03 +0000

On 02/01/2007 21:47, K Randolph wrote:
...
Actually there is. The first phrase is pretty straight forward that
they sent it, i.e. that they did not bring it themselves. That reading
is strengthened by the use of the hiphil of "to come" meaning that
they caused it to come to their father. This could very well have been
sent with one of their slaves, the syntax does not require that one of
them bring it personally. Evidently none of them had the balls to come
and lie to their father's face, and the text indicates that
indirection. Genesis mentions that Jacob was very wealthy owning
slaves as well as having 12 sons, and while the text does not mention
a slave in this verse, the syntax implies it, or at least someone
other than one of the remaining sons.

There is actually a quite common idiom in the Hebrew Bible of using $LX with no object followed by another verb to indicate some kind of causative sense. See the article "Send!" by John Ellington in The Bible Translator vol.45 no.2 (1994) pp.228-238, online at http://rosetta.reltech.org/TBT/CD3/1994/02/TBT199402.html?num=&x=0&y=0&num1=228 . Ellington does not list Genesis 37:32 as an example of this construction because "send" does have an object, but it is probably the same kind of construction with the object displaced. As such the point is that the action is done through an intermediary, in this case probably a servant. It seems to be only later, in verse 35, that Jacob's sons actually come to him. I suppose the sons' excuse was that they were busy pasturing sheep near Dothan in the north, while Jacob was some way off probably at Hebron in the south.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail: peter AT qaya.org
Blog: http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/





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