Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

Bill,
> <Bill>
> The literal of Gen 2:17 seems to be:
>
> ...dying thou shalt die...
>
> which is generally translated "thou shalt surely die"
>
> * is this a fairly certain translation? could it be taken unidiomatically?

I'm not sure what you mean by "unidiomatically" since it's a
common Hebrew idiom; "going you shall go," "dying you shall die,"
"loving you shall love" etc.  It's a Hebrew way of emphasizing the
sureness of something: "this will most definitely happen" or "you
will most certainly do this."  We see a similar construction in
Jonah 1 where the sailors "feared a great fear."  As my first-year
Hebrew teacher said so many many years ago, "feared a fear" is
emphatic enough, but when you add "great" it probably means
some of them had to go change their underwear.  Using cognate
forms like this was a "normal" (whatever that word means) way that
Hebrew strengthened the force of something like "die."

> * does the construct appear elsewhere in Scripture?

All over the place.

> * does anyone respectable champion another reading?

Not that I am aware of.  No one unrespectable that I've seen either
;-)


Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"Éist le glór Dé."