Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

> 
> Dear Liz,
> 
> Don't impute me defending anything Christian. Doesn't work.
Sorry, I meant the general "you" not t h e specific "you."
> 
> I don't reject your Persian court hypothesis out of hand, but 
> I have a problem with mishpat and with the verses,
> 
> 10. And God, desiring his dejection, made him ill;
> 
> if his soul had brought a guilt offering,
> 
> he would have seen [his] descendants,
> 
> prolonged days,
> 
> and the will of God would have succeeded through his efforts.
> 
> 11. In result of the work of his soul,
> 
> he would have started seeing,
> 
> would have been filled by his knowledge,
> 
> my slave would have justified the righteous before multitude,
> 
> and their sinful digressions he would have withstood.

I have no idea what these verses mean.
I've tried to translate this passage for a paper on Isaiah,
and faltered just on these verses. 
I wouldn't translate 10 this way, rather, "if  you would put
a ransom on his life...." or "if you would make a ransom of
his life."
Generally I avoid the word "soul" as I don't think souls had
been invented yet.
I also prefer "ransom" to guilt offering (1 Sam 6).
> 
> 
> >I can
> > assure you there were no Jewish courts even in  Judah during the 
> >Persian period.
> hmmm, how could anyone know this?
> Judges were required for the returning population, some of 
> them were surely available to handle the crrent disputes. But 
> this is speculation, anyway.
No, it isn't. This is one of the results of my survey of the evidence
from Persian period Babylon and Egypt. Every named judge was Persian
except one in Egypt who was Babylonian. There were no Egyptian
judges in Egypt in the Persian period, they were all foreign. Persians
dispensed Persian law and Persian sanctions. There were plenty of
judges all right, but they were all foreign. In addition to my article and
the
book, you can look at an article by R. Steiner in JBL, 2001 I think on
Ezra's mission.

Best,
Liz
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Vadim