Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Dear Harold:

If you want to convince me of a particular reading, you’ll have to do more 
than just throw someone else’s translation at me. I may disagree with 
multiple aspects of that translation.

If I misread a passage because I have misinformation of something outside of 
the Hebrew language, then correcting the information I have will cause me to 
reread the passage. You tried to do that with foxes and vineyards: the only 
problem with that is that the information that you referenced, while it 
corrected me in that foxes like to eat grapes, did not otherwise support your 
claims. That is a correct step to take.

If you want to convince me of a particular reading, or as in the case above 
the definition of a word, these are the steps you’ll need to do. Let’s use 
the example of Proverbs 1:19.

The first step, strip away the points. The points were not original are 
sometimes wrong. Even if they are wrong as few as 1% of the time, that is too 
often for me. From a seat of the pants impression, the points are wrong 2–5% 
of the time. If one tries to keep to the points when they are wrong, it can 
lead to some real mental gymnastics. It’s no problem if the points are 
correct, but we can’t assume that. In this example, that gives us:

KN )RXWT KL BC( BC( )T NP$ B(LYW YQX
כן ארחות כל 
בצע בצע את 
נפש בעליו 
יקח

The next step is to analyze this grammatically. Do we have complete sentences 
(possibly it is a continuation of a previous verse, or it continues into the 
next verse, so context is part of this step)? From the context, we see that 
this is a stand alone verse, so the complete sentence(s) are internal.

Concurrently with this step, look for any words in their contexts that may 
take two or more pointings, hence two or more divergent meanings. In the two 
partial sentences below, none of the words will give a problem, so I won’t go 
very much into this question with this verse.

Do the first three words make up a sentence? 

KN )RXWT KL  כן ארחות כל

While the first word KN can have an implied “to be” making another verb 
surplus, it can also have another verb: the context asks for more than just 
these three words. It does not make sense as a complete sentence in this 
context.

Do the final four words make up a complete sentence?

)T NP$ B(LYW YQX  את נפש 
בעליו יקח

Here we have a verb and an object, but no subject—incomplete sentence.

As pointed, BC( BC(  בצע בצע are a 
compound verb, but as a compound verb, do they fit either partial sentence? 
If attached to the second, that gives two verbs but still no subject. If 
attached to the first, it gives us a verb where grammatically we expect to 
see a noun. But without points, we have other options. If both are nouns, we 
now have two simple, complete sentences, where each is the subject of its 
respective sentence. I read the first as a participle acting as a noun, the 
second as a shegolate noun. Thus the two sentences are:

KN )RXWT KL BC(
כן ארחות כל 
בצע
Such are the roads of all those taking a cut

and:

BC( )T NP$ B(LYW YQX
בצע את נפש 
באליו יקח
a cut takes the life of its master

A couple of additional notes to clarify matters more: “cut” when it stands 
alone as in this context, is used in the same way as in English “a cut of the 
profits” or “gain” (e.g. Genesis 37:26) or “a cut of the loot” or “illegal 
gain” as in this and most other cases in Tanakh. Secondly, this is poetic, 
with KN with its implied “to be” and YQX acting as the parenthesis of the 
verse, with the subjects in the center with the added benefit for poetic use 
that they are from the same root. (A similar poetic mirroring is found in 
verses 26 & 27 of the same chapter.)

A final translation, smoothed out in English with a bit a paraphrasing, could 
very well be, “Such are the roads of those who take a cut of the loot; unjust 
gain takes over the life of its owner.”

Usually, the reading that makes the simplest sentences has the correct 
meaning, but not always.

Reading the context, the verses surrounding the verse in question, gives the 
final say. The context of this verse shows that this is the final verse of a 
passage talking about people going out and illegally taking from others. The 
two verses immediately preceding this verse indicates that such actions end 
up giving problems to the actors. Again, it fits.

After doing all these steps, you may find that the points were correct all 
along and usually that’s the case, making the first step unnecessary, but we 
can’t assume that.

If, OTOH, after doing all these steps we still can’t tease a logical meaning 
without severe mental gymnastics, we need to entertain the possibility that a 
definition or two may be incorrect in the lexicon. But this is the absolute 
last step and often multiplies the work exponentially. I don’t like to do 
this step. I prefer to use recognized definitions wherever possible. But I 
will question lexica when I see two or more definitions given to one lexeme 
and I see no reason for it.

On the question of Job 39:13, these are the steps I took to tease out a 
simple sentence that made sense and fit the context. Do you remember? I 
didn’t need to do the final step with that verse.

Harold, are these the steps you take when you disagree with me? But if all 
you do is to present someone else’s translation, how convincing is that? 
Especially when I may disagree with the translator on several points? Or do 
you have another methodology that you haven’t explained?

With what aspects of this methodology do you disagree and why?

Is there any way to improve this methodology?

Oh yes, this methodology is combined with my presupposition borne out in 
practice that lexemes usually, though not always, have only one root 
definition and its definition will be recognizable in other lexemes from the 
same root. Whether that root definition is narrow or broad can often be 
recognized from the lexeme’s uses, the uses of other lexemes from the same 
root and in comparison with synonyms and antonyms. In modern languages where 
we have the history of a term, that can help, but that is not true of 
Biblical Hebrew. But with how small the surviving corpus is of Biblical 
Hebrew with its many hapax legomais, that doesn’t always work.

Karl W. Randolph.
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