Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Raymond de Hoop <rdehoop AT keyaccess.nl>]

Title: Re: [b-hebrew] RE: b-hebrew Digest, Vol 1, Issue 11: Blessing -

At 23-01-2003 01:21 Ben and Jo Crick <ben.crick AT argonet.co.uk> wrote:

> To avoid compounding the felony, so to speak, biblical characters use BRK as a euphemism for Curse or Blaspheme. See the accusation against Naboth, that he had "blasphemed" God and the king (1 Kings 21:13). Job's wife does the same in Job 2:9, telling her husband "curse God and die".
>
> The context makes this euphemistic substitution quite transparent.

Shalom Ben
Are we dealing here with euphemisms? We are used to think `to bless' if we see the root BRK. But, it could be possible that the root had a much wider connotation and also could be used for `to say farewell', which would fit in 1Kgs and Job rather well. In Genesis 49 the rendering  `blessing' is not very succesfully, and `testamentary saying' -like in Genesis 27- would probably fit better. However, this translation also will cause it problems ... 

kol tuv,
Raymond 

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Dr Raymond de Hoop    
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University of Groningen
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e-mail: R.de.Hoop AT theol.rug.nl

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