Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

The point is that the snake was right,
not God. Their eyes were opened (3:7), and they did not die
on the day they ate it as God said they would (2:17).

Liz Fried

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas L. Thompson [mailto:tlt AT teol.ku.dk]
> Sent: Monday, August 21, 2000 11:43 AM
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: SV: Gen 2:17: Dying thou shalt die
>
>
>
>
> > -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
> > Fra:        Thomas L. Thompson
> > Sendt:      21. august 2000 17:38
> > Til:        'Dave Washburn'
> > Emne:       SV: Gen 2:17: Dying thou shalt die
> >
> > Jubilees might help in this. The story in Genesis ends with
> Adam living on
> > and becoming the father of children outside the garden.
> Jubilees addresses
> > itself to the implications of Yahweh's words, that Adam will die on the
> > day he eats of the tree. The author finds a solution to the seeming
> > incoherence of 'you will surely die' by pointing out that in
> Yahweh's eyes
> > a thousand years is but a day. In God's eyes Adam does not live out that
> > fateful day.
> > Thomas
> >
> >     -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
> >     Fra:    Dave Washburn [SMTP:dwashbur AT nyx.net]
> >     Sendt:  21. august 2000 05:32
> >     Til:    Biblical Hebrew
> >     Emne:   Re: Gen 2:17: Dying thou shalt die
> >
> >     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."
> >
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