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  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: "B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew List <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] labo' lepaney and Gen 6:13
  • Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 22:32:04 -0400

Bryan

I would freely translate Genesis 6:13 thus: Then God said to Noax: I am contemplating (considering?) putting an end to all (KOL) life because the land is replete with their rapacity; here now I am going to destroy them (MA$XYITAM) all, completely (ET HA-AREC).

On the face of it, the rest is not very logical, however the net result is the astounding promise of permanence, stability and continuity given us in Genesis 8:21-22.

I admit that I am adding some literary padding of my own to this tersely recounted event. Verses 5-7 of chapter 6 make it clear that God truly regretted (VA-YI-NAXEM) having created life. Things got out of hand, so to speak, post creationally. The immense complexity of the intelligent, insatiable, self-sustaining, self-preserving life turned out to give it a dark and ugly shade. Life has some astoundingly positive manifestations, but there are plainly also some that are on the negative side. God had to bribe man with a sense of pleasure, but also give him pain, exacting thereby a steep price for being alive. God apparently did not "foresee" the, possibly nefarious, far reaching consequences of man's indispensable complex corporal-emotional setup. Admittedly, God gave him the counterbalancing gifts of love, justice and compassion, to act as restraining forces to the syndromes of rapacity and desire, but their check, we know, is not absolute. So God asks himself now "who needs life", and he wants to do away with it. It is all His initiative. Man does not have the wherewithal (nor the desire) to wipe himself out of existence. The fact of the matter is that man as a whole, with all his failings, is doing surprisingly well these days.

But it so happens that He can not do it---life is inevitable. By creating the physical conditions needed to support life, God, "unwittingly" and ab initio created life itself. Moreover, it is possible that man really represent the ultimate of all biological possibilities, and that God could not improve on him in the context of his own creation. Man was, after all, created in the ultimate shape and image.

BTW I find the here displayed range of meaning of the root $XT [T = TAV] interesting. In verse 12 HI$XYIT is 'spoiled', but right in the next verse it is 'destroy'.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Apr 23, 2007, at 11:27 AM, B. M. Rocine wrote:

Hi Isaac,

Do you realize that you did not send the post below to the b-hebrew list? Just thought I'd mention it since the "reply" system is a little quirky.

Let me press you for a little more precision.
I see these as distinct:

a "starts to question"
b "learns now post factum"
c "seriously contemplating to put to an end"

Does one of these correspond precisely to kets kol basar ba' lepanay? I think b. Most modern Eng translations think c.

Shalom,
Bryan

Isaac Fried wrote:
Bryan,

I think that BA LePANAY (as in Genesis 6:13), means just what it says: "appeared against my face", so as to be grasped by the senses: the eyes, the ears, the nose. A thing can actually be seen by the "outer" eye, or it can be seen (imagined) by the "inner" eye (it can rise or appear before the inner eye). Apparently God starts here to question the wisdom and purpose of allowing life, that is inevitably beset, he learns now post factum, by the ill side-effects of pain, misery, cruelty and rapacity, and he is seriously contemplating to put an end to his previous grand experiment of Day Six. Yet Noax is a good man, and the beasts are innocent, and the fishes are dumb, and are anyway hiding deep inside the waters etc..
God has a problem there; life may be evil but creation consisting of just rocks and water is not very thrilling. He is actually confronted by an acute post-creation dilemma: to allow pain or do away with life.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
On Apr 20, 2007, at 11:44 AM, B. M. Rocine wrote:

B-Haverim,

Gen 6:13 kets kol basar ba' lepanay
"an end of all flesh has come before me"

Generally the idiom "labo' lepaney" refers to having an audience, as with a king or YHWH. Occasionally it refers to leading a military force into battle. Gen 6:13 is different in that it is the only time the idiom has a thing rather than a person as subject, specifically _kets kol basar_.

So I take it to mean *the idea* of annihilation gained an audience with YHWH, that is "came to his mind," right?

I note that the cause of annihilation is not specified. Might the expression leave open the possibility that annihilation was about to be caused by man's own violence (apart from the flood)? In other words, there is a *possibility* that the clause quoted above refers to YHWH's intuition that all life was about to end as a result of man's violence. Is that right?
I think it's an interesting question because the supplicant who gains audience before a great power typically does so as a means of gaining salvation. Perhaps the Hebrew gives greater voice than our extant English translations to the idea that YHWH was intervening in an emergency.

Shalom,
Bryan

--
B.M. Rocine
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13206
W: (315) 437-6744

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--
B.M. Rocine
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13206
W: (315) 437-6744






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