Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 12.21 19/06/00 +0100, you wrote:
>Ian, your logic amazes me with its twists. 

I can understand that. I'm trying to undeerstand the significance of the
text -- with its philological twists. However, my review contains nothing
strange.

>I can't bring you up on everything. 

I realise, Peter. (But I don't understand why you need to be so plain rude
in your post, being amazed at someone's logic being so twisty, imply that
one is being deliberately confusing.)

>But you are certainly confused here, or else deliberately
>confusing. 

How would you know? (And why accuse someone of being deliberately
confusing, when you have no criteria for such an accusation, which to me
seems baseless?)

>I don't know much Ugaritic, but it is clear that `rb(t) is
>cognate with the Hebrew word for "evening", 

This is an argument based on appearance. This has little philological
value, Peter. The Ugaritic verb `rb specifically means "to go in" or
"enter" -- and can even have sexual implications. The words may be related,
but what that relationship is doesn't necessarily mean "cognate". One can
see how it can relate to the Hebrew word for "evening", for this was the
time when the sun went in at the end of the day. But the exact relationship
between the two words in the two langauges is not a clear one.

So, what may be clear to you here doesn't seem directly connected with what
actually was.

>whereas the Hebrew root bw' (not
>bw`, if you want to be consistent) used in Amos 8:9 is the common word for
>"come". 

Doesn't this verb more consistently carry the notion of entering???

>Now Hebrew idioms are not necessarily the same as Ugaritic ones, and
>there may be alternative idioms for the same thing, just as in English we
>can say "the sun sets" and "the sun goes down". 

Agreed.

>So such a cross-match of
>idioms does not make the Ugaritic root `rb synonymous with the Hebrew one
>bw' as you seem to be arguing. Unless you can find cases where the Hebrew or
>Ugaritic `rb definitely refers to an eclipse, we can at least expect it to
>have its regular meaning "evening" or "sunset". 

What you need to do, if you want to go against the normal understanding of
the text, is to support your claims from the Ugaritic corpus, not make
unwarranted connections with Hebrew as your basis for commenting. The
methodological error should be obvious: you should start with the Ugaritic
text not from assumptions based on Hebrew.

>It does not help your case
>at all that in a different language a different root may also refer to an
>eclipse.

What we have is verbs in two languages which have essentially the same
meaning, apparently used in the same idiomatic connection, both of which
fit the cosmological understanding of the era.

>Of course, if you interpret neither b++ nor `rbt in the Ugaritic text as
>referring to an eclipse, we are left with a problem: 

You misunderstand or misrepresent me. I give the ranges of meaning. I opted
for the common understanding of the text found in the literature, ie that
`rbt, especially connected to the sun, $p$, clearly deals with an unusual
act of the sun entering. This is probably a periphrastic description of an
eclipse. As stated in Sawyer & Stephenson, "we may assume that the phrase
<i>`rbt $p$</> refers to an eclipse of the sun."

>no-one would have
>written such a text (we may presume) just to report that the sun set on a
>particular day. At least we might expect that, though it would not be wise
>to assume it too easily across such a wide cultural gap.

Obviously the simplicity of my post has given you some difficulty. I was
attempting to look at the significances available -- and opted for showing
only two basic significances of b++ (it could also mean to "tarry", which
has also been argued).

>You argue for a literal understanding of "the sun was ashamed" in Isaiah
>24:23.  But there must be some figure of speech here, as an inanimate object
>does not have feelings. The figure may be an anthropomorphism, an
>attribution of human (or possibly divine) attributes to an inanimate object;
>and that is possible in the context of verse 21, if the "powers in the
>heavens above" are the sun and the moon. 

You have partially explained away your own problems here. Take this
explanation in context with the consistent use of the verbs xpr and bw', as
well as the text of 24:23 itself.

>But the rest of the chapter seems
>to be a description of physically observable phenomena e.g. a severe drought
>(vv.4-9), flooding and earthquakes or landslides (vv.18-20) - cast in
>language which personifies the earth. Other apocalyptic passages e.g. Isaiah
>13:10, Joel 2:30-31 (English), 3:3-4 (Hebrew) ...

(But are these eclipses, eg "the sun will be dark at its rising, the moon
will not shed light"?)

>...clearly describe the sun being darkened. 

This one doesn't. The text reads:

  The moon will be confounded and the sun ashamed;
  for the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion
    and in Jerusalem,
  and before the elders he will manifest his glory.

Note the mention of the glory here. This is the reason for the moon and the
sun in such straights. It is the presence of the glory of God which has
confounded and ashamed them.

>So I would conclude that that is the meaning in Isaiah 24:23,
>which could be a prophecy of eclipses; and if so it could well be the
>meaning of the Ugaritic text also.

I don't think you've made your case, Peter. There's nothing to suggest an
eclipse.

>The planet Mars could easily be visible at sunset, if it happened to be in
>the right part of the sky, though not if it was too close to the sun - and
>it would be far from its brightest if near the sun. 

If the sun is supposed to be setting in the west, where would you like to
place Mars so that it would be visible? It is nowhere near as bright as Venus.

>It would of course be even less easily visible at noon. 

This is what should make one careful of interpretations -- and why I looked
at a few problems in the text. 

>But it would certainly be visible during a
>total solar eclipse at any time of day. Anyway, since few heavenly bodies
>are visible during daylight, I would surmise that "gatekeeper" refers to the
>first heavenly body visible just above the spot where the sun has just set
>(the "gate" through which it has "gone"), and that could certainly be Mars.

Rashap was in fact the infernal god who opened the door for the sun. (It is
through his correspondence with the Akkadian god, Nergal, who is identified
with the "unlucky" planet, Mars, that we get that connection.) If the sun
went in a door in the sky, then obviously Rashap would have been present. 

>Would you care to elucidate in what way the sunset eclipse interpretation
>may be considered infamous? Or what reason you may have to want to discredit
>this interpretation?

It has had so many different interpretations.

J. Aisleitner, Acta Orientalia Hungarica, v 1-2, 1955, pp. 20-22.
Sawyer & Stephenson, BSOAS 33, 1970, pp. 467-489.
(This latter has a good review of the literature.)

Assuming the text is in fact about an eclipse, would you like to say how a
particular *day* being ashamed could in itself refer, as you would have it,
to an eclipse?


Ian