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  • From: <pporta AT oham.net>
  • To: "Gabe Eisenstein" <gabe AT cascadeaccess.com>, <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Hosea 5:2
  • Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:44:31 +0200

I have several problems with Hosea 5:2.
W$X+H &+YM H(MYQW W)NY MWSR LKLM

The first is the word &+YM, or perhaps $+YM, that is,
shin/sin-teth-yod-mem.
With a shin, it would be identical to the shitim of the Torah which is:
a) a kind of wood (acacia); b) a place in Moab where Israel sinned, and
where they were still encamped as of Joshua 2-3.
English translations mostly favor the Masoretic rendering &A+|M,
assuming a derivation from &W+, to turn away, thus getting "rebels"or
"revolters". The Oxford translation sticks with the consonantal text and
renders "Shitim" ("I have made deep the pit of Shitim.") (I guess "pit"
is just thrown in to go with "made deep"; but I don't know what happened
to shachatah in this translation. Maybe it is loosely translated as "pit"?)
What say you?
_______________

PP:

He'emiqu is a 3rd person plural Hiph'il past: they made deep. So it is quite hard to understand how this verb could have been translated as "I have made deep..." (Oxford translation, so you say)
________

I am also confused about the grammar involving shachatah and he'miqu,
the two verbs in the first clause, which is verb-noun-verb.
__________

PP:

The first clause is not "verb-noun-verb". It is "noun-noun-verb", the first noun being the direct object of the sentence and the second one being its subject.
_________

Some translations seem to take shachatah as a gerund: "the revolters deepen
the slaughter(ing)". JPS takes it as infinitive and has "they were
profound to kill the revolters". My main question is: How can we decide
what is the subject and what is the object here?

PP:
We know which is the subject and which is the object by using reasoning. As the verb he'emiqu is third person plural, the normal issue is its subject to be a plural too. So, the only plural in the clause, &+YM, must be the subject. And the word $X+H --a noun, not a gerund- is the object.
So "and the revolters deepened the slaughter". The revolters are the killeRS.
__________

Are the satim/shitim
killers or killed?

PP:

Look at the end of the preceding text piece.
_________

Finally, I am puzzled by the word MWSR. It always seems to mean
"correction, rebuke, instruction" in other contexts, where it is derived
from YSR. But the Jewish Publication Society translations render
"removed" and "rejected" ("I have been rejected by them all"), which
must be derivations from MSR, to deliver or hand over. (Certainly it
can't mean "rebuked" if God, the speaker, is the object rather than the
subject of the sentence.) But in that case is it a participle or rather
present-tense, as my verb-book has it? In the latter case it would be
something more like "I give myself to them all."

PP:

By no means MWSR comes from the verb MSR, to deliver or hand over.
As regards verb MSR only TWO items or forms of it appear in the Bible: Nm 31:5 and 31:16.
The sense of the clause is clear (to my sense): I will correct/chastise/punish them all.
__________


If the second word is "revolters", who are they? All of Israel ever
since Jeroboam? The rebels under Jehu? Or the Jehuid kings of Hosea's
time who turned away from the righteous path of Jehu? (Of course this is
related to the question about "Jezreel" and Hosea's attitude toward
Jehu. I still assume Hosea condemns Jehu, as he condemns the Jehuids.)
If the second word is "Shitim" the place-name, then that which has been
"deepened" must be the violence that occurred there. You could associate
it with the sin of Peor, but the actual "slaughter" we find there was
committed by Phinehas. In this case the "deepening" would just be a
coninuation of Phinehas' ethnocentric zeal. Then the first clause might
be praise rather than condemnation (although this wouldn't fit the
context); or it might be condemnation for being too zealous, that is,
Hosea might not take Phinehas as a moral exemplar (I know I don't!). The
ambiguity of zealousness or stringency in this connection is brought out
by R.Yochanan at Sanhedrin 102a, who connects he'miqu with the
stringency of laws about attending or not attending festivals. (Jeroboam
was "deeper", i.e. more stringent than the Torah.)

If any of these points could be pinned down, the others would get easier.

PP:

Here I cannot help you because I'm unable to give an answer.

Pere Porta
Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain)

Gabe Eisenstein
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