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  • From: Bearpecs AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: A new tack on 'asher
  • Date: Tue, 8 May 2001 01:31:22 EDT


Here's (as far I know) an approach to Exodus 3:14 that we haven't considered
yet in our discussion.  I explored this option when I was struggling to
translate Psalm 95.  Verse 9 has been translated with various approaches to
the first word of the verse, which is (you guessed it) 'asher, e.g.  "when
your fathers put me to the test ..." (NJPS).  For 'asher as "when", see GKC
§164c.  Dahood (Anchor Bible), however, translates: "Where your forefathers
tested me, ...",  For 'asher as "where", see BDB pp. 81ff. (esp. p.82 meaning
4b).  (I think it is likely that "where" is the older meaning, since Akkadian
ašar = where.)

If we consider the possibility of 'asher as "where", we could translate
Exodus 13:4 :  "I (can and) will be wherever I will (to) be."  This would fit
the context in an important and different way.  It would make a lot of sense
if G-d were telling Moses:  Even though I am the G-d of your ancestors who
lived in Canaan, I am not a regional god like Baal or Hemosh but rather just
as I was with them in Canaan, I can and will be with you in Egypt, and will
be with you afterwards when you leave Egypt.

By the way, I took a different approach to translating Ps 95:9.
I translated Ps. 95:9a:  "There your ancestors were a trial to Me,"
and footnoted my use of "there" as follows:
While radical, translating Heb. ’ašer as“there” accords with its apparent
Semitic origin.  (See  BDB pp. 81ff. and compare Akkadian ašru = “place”.)  
It is logical in context and better fits the phrasing.

Later in Psalm 95, I translated verse11:
There I swore in My anger that they would not come into My rest.”
In this verse I footnoted "there":
As in the footnote on verse 9, although here one could readily translate “So
I swore…”(see GKC §165).
(In case you were wondering, although irrelevant to this discussion, I
footnoted my use of "they would not":  For this use of Heb. ’im, see BDB p.50
and GKC §149b.)




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