Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Kirk Lowery" <kelowery AT cs.com>]

On 26 Mar 2000, at 16:25, Liz Fried wrote:

> The translation of this passage seems perfectly clear and obvious to me,
> yet I haven't seen one commentator translate it this way.
>  People translate it based on the LXX, which says
>  "[none of us] took off our clothes, each kept his
> weapon in his right hand." 
> My translation is: "none of us took off our clothes, or
> even went to the bathroom."
> literally, it reads "nor sent out water." People
> read it "his weapon the water."
> It seems obvious to me what's going on.
> Whatcha all think?

Well, it all hangs on how one understands $il:xow, no? If it is a piel inf cs 
from $lx "to send", then your translation is the only real alternative. And 1 
Chr 8:8 uses this form in exactly this way.

Another alternative is that the form is a common noun, $elax, commonly 
translated "missle, javelin." That's how Koehler-Baumgartner understands this 
word and cites Neh 4:11,17. The problem is, what does a weapon have to do 
with 
water? To make matters worse, the form occurs in 2 Chr 23:10 

'i$ Sil:xow b:yfdow "each man's javelin in his hand"

and Neh 4:17 has hammfyim instead of b:yfdow. So one might suspect that the 
last word was corrupted somehow. The LXX tried to make this work, and doesn't 
reflect a different Vorlage, IMO.

The conservative in me opts for the understanding which least disturbs the 
text, so I think your choice is best, euphemistically speaking. ;-)

Blessings,

Kirk
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