Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Paul Zellmer <zellmer AT cag.pworld.net.ph>]

Ben Crick wrote:

>  The word HaPaK, to overthrow, typically occurs only in close context with
>  Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, the four cities of the Vale of Siddim
>  which were overthrown by the seismic event of the dropping of the floor
>  of the Great Rift Valley in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea. This was
>  accompanied by burning pitch, brimstone and salt as graphically described
>  in Genesis 19.
>
>  The NEB and the REB quite gratuitously replace /overthrown by strangers/
>  with /Sodom in its overthrow/ (NEB), /Sodom after its overthrow/ (REB).
>

Thanks, Ben.  This is what I was trying to check out.  If it were not for the 
lexicons
mentioning the typical collocation, I admit that making a reference to Sodom 
this
early in the text would have never occurred to me.  Maybe we have a very 
oblique
foreshadowing to the illustration that Isaiah is about to move into, what?

>  The Sodom and Gomorrah context is provided in verses 9-10. In verse 7 we
>  have a perfect Chiasmus:
>         foreigners
>             devour
>                 it in your presence, and
>                 it is
>             desolate, as overthrown by
>         foreigners.
>

Since chiasmus is found so frequently in the parallel structure of Hebrew 
poetry, I,
of course, saw this, although I'm not sure that the preservation of the 
source of the
action is necessarily required for poetic chiasmus.  Although it does add 
some support
to an argument, I hesitate determining a word meaning or interpretation of 
grammatical
form on that basis.

>  This Isaianic structural feature should be preserved, IMHO. The land of
>  Judah in the days of Uzziah, Jotham and Ahaz was languishing in spiritual
>  apostasy. This would inevitably lead to destruction by enemies, as Isaiah
>  prophesied. Hezekiah managed to stop the rot for a while; but his son
>  Manasseh was the wickedest king that Judah ever had. Again the revival
>  under Josiah brought another brief respite; but the Babylonian captivity
>  became inescapable. But Isaiah with prophetic vision could see beyond
>  destruction to restoration...
>

Of course!  I was not thinking of changing the storyline. ;^>

Thanks again.  Oh, and thanks also to Lewis and John for their comments on 
verse 3.

BaRZeL B:BaRZeL YfXaD W:'iY$ YaXaD P:N"Y-R"`"HW.

Paul

--
Paul and Dee Zellmer, Jimmy Guingab, Geoffrey Beltran
Ibanag Translation Project
Cabagan, Philippines

zellmer AT faith.edu.ph