Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au>]

Lee R. Martin wrote:

> Dear Jack and George,
> Allow me to address a couple of issues.
> 1- Words do not transmit all of their senses in individual contexts.  ToHu 
> may mean
> both "vanity" and "disorder," but these two senses are not  brought to 
> every use of
> the word.

Of course!

> 2- Rarely do any two languages have word-for-word equivalents, so we need 
> only find a
> translation equivalent that fits each context.  It is not necessary (nor 
> possible) to
> find an English word that corresponds exactly to each Hebrew word.

Well said!

> 3- The hendiadys may be a fossilized term that means something different 
> from the sum
> of its parts, e.g. a greenhouse is not green and neither is it a house.

I don't see how that can be the case here since we've been addressing ToHU as 
it
accompanies BoHU.

> 4- Isaiah's use of ToHu may or may not be relevant to Gen. 1, but it must 
> not be
> assumed that both writers intended the same sense.  Their writings may be 
> separated by
> centuries, and language changes.

Begging to differ slightly: Isa 34:11 uses ToHU with BoHU in a neat parallel, 
just as we
do in Genesis. This construction makes one think that both authors had the 
same idea in
mind. That's why I mentioned Isa 34:11 as probably shedding a but more light 
on the
issue.
Very best as ever,
GEORGE ATHAS
Dept of Semitic Studies,
University of Sydney
- Email: gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au
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