Biblical Hebrew Forum

["B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com>]

Hi Peter, you wrote:
> I wonder if you are both trying too hard to fit this verb into English
> categories, either "become" or "be". I guess it works more like the verb
> "olmaq" in the language I was working on. The basic meaning is "to
> become", but because there is no full verb "to be", only a few clitic
> forms, in some tense/aspect/moods "olmaq" is used with a meaning more
> like "to be". This got the translators into problems on John 1:1 which
> could be read "In the beginning the word became... the word became God"
> suggesting that it had previously been something different; the clitic
> form would have been more suitable. (Sorry for the NT example which is
> to illustrate the use of the word not to comment on the text.) In
> Genesis 1:2 at least we avoided that problem by using the clitic form.
>
> Peter Kirk

Thanks for the interesting comparison of HYH and "olmaq."

On Gen 1:2, I may be able to bring up some points we haven't covered int he
list's previous treatment of the verse.

You mention the problem you avoid in Gen 1:2 by using, in your target
language, a clitic morpheme that means "be."  I assume the problem you refer
to is what to do with the qal qatal of HYH, haytah:  veha'arets haytah tohu
vabohu.  The problem, I take it, is in seeing haytah as anything *other*
than a copulative.  You want "the earth *was*," and you want to avoid the
somehow problematic "the earth had become."  I don't see why "the earth had
become" should be a problem if that is indeed an acurate equivalent to the
Hebrew.  Isn't it Jeremiah who describes a sinful society that becomes, as a
result of the injustice and hypocrisy, tohu and bohu?  So what was possible
in Jeremiah's cosmology?  I suggest he, as a native speaker of BH, would not
have a problem with translating haytah as "had become" either because of the
grammar or because of his cosmology.  Rashi also takes the first verses of
the Bible to support the idea that God takes His creation from one people
and gives it to another.

In any case, how about the different constructions employed by the writer in
the clause of verse 2a on the one hand and verbless clauses of verses 2b and
2c on the other hand:

2a veha'arets haytah tohu vabohu
2b vexoshek `al pney tehom
2c veruax 'elohim meraxephet `al pney hammayim

Only 2a uses a form of HYH in this scene-setting passage.  Are we not to
judge clause 2a to be somehow different than 2b and 2c because of the verb?
An interpretation of haytah as a practically invisible copulative seems to
count as insignificant 2a's difference with the verbless nature of vv. 2b
and 2c.

Grant me a sort of idiosyncratic translation of vv. 1 and 2 for
conversation' sake:

"It was in the beginning that God was Creator of the heavens and the earth;
but the earth had become wild and waste; and darkness was upon the face of
the deep; and the Spirit of God was hovering upon the face of the waters."

We may find such a translation unsatisfactory because we wonder just how the
earth had become so.  But that is not necessarily a weighty criticism of the
translation itself.  That criticism might only be suitable for the writer of
the Hebrew who hasn't satisfied our curiosity about how the scene came to
be.  Even directed toward the writer, it is a light criticism indeed.
Writers decide what their audiences need to know and when to tell them what
they need to know.  Even the best writers leave their audiences baxoshek,
"in the dark," about some conspicuously absent details.  If nothing else,
the writer has us relish the details we *do* have by leaving others out or
saving some for another time.

Shalom,
Bryan


B. M. Rocine
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13206

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