Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Hi Karl,

Congratulations on successfully joining the forum.  I hope you enjoy the
exchange here.

Do I have this right?  You think the pen was deceptive; I think *making* the
pen was deceptive.

In your reading of Jer 8:8, to what exactly do you think the figure
"deceptive pen" refers?  Maybe the act of altering the holy writ or
generating new, false teachings?

I guess I am thinking of the scribe as a copyist/preserver of texts, one who
is supposed to be devoted, with both pen and manner of life, to a corpus.
Maybe I shouldn't be thinking of the scribe in such a narrow way, but it
seems to make sense in the context of the analogies to the stork, dove, etc.
in Jer 8:7.  Wise men, scribes, prophets, and so forth, by definition,
should know torah welll enough to be reproveable.  Remarkably, these
pen-makers do not know their text.

I think my understanding of the scribe also is consistent with the
counter-example or foil of the faithful scribe Barukh, who is featured later
in Jer.

As to the meaning of sheqer, I admit "lie" is a bit of a paraphrase.  I
think the word refers specifically to a breach of faith.

Shalom, Bryan

You wrote:

> If you strip out the dots, doesn't it make more sense to read, ".surely
behold, for deception he made (the) scribes' deceptive pen"? When reading
the text without dots, it appears to me that the sentence makes clearer
sense with the first "sheqer" also being indefinite. (The definitive article
in paranthesis is only for English language translation.)
>
> My understanding is that "sheqer" comes from a root meaning to deceive by
any means, whereas would not a lie be from the root KZB?
>
> Verse six indicated that devotion to the message was absent, but verse
seven indicates that was because the people are ignorant, therefore verse
eight, how can the people say that they are wise?
>
> Karl.
>
>
> > Hi Steve,
> >
> > The Hebrew in question is lashsheqer `asah 'et sheqer sophrim.  Note
that
> > the first sheqer is definite as in *the* lie.  "For the lie he made..."
The
> > verb `asah wants a direct object, so I will take 'et as the direct
object.
> > "For the lie he made a pen."  What lie?  The appositive answers:  sheqer
> > sophrim, "lie of scribes."
> >
> > "It was for the lie that he made a pen, lie of scribes."  The particular
lie
> > of scribes is in making a pen, a gesture that should equate with
devotion to
> > the text.  However, in the prohet's estimation, making a pen was a lying
> > gesture in that devotion to the message was absent.
> >
> > Shalom, Bryan
> >

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

ph: 315.437.6744
fx: 315.437.6766