Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Maybe I’m just showing my ignorance or lack of experience, but every case 
that I know of where there is a secret bribe where neither the giver nor the 
givee wants the bribe to be known, the bribe was not given to assuage anger 
between the giver and the givee, for they had none to assuage, but to 
influence actions towards a third party in a way that perverts justice. And 
that tends towards inciting anger.

That does not mean that a gift given to recompense for an injury, in other 
words to assuage anger, is something to blab about, for, with rare 
exceptions, neither the giver nor the givee wants to make a show of such a 
gift; but neither is it a secret. But hiding a bribe in one’s bosom really 
looks suspicious, like skulking in the shadows.

Karl W. Randolph.

On 23/07/2004 10:44, Trevor Peterson wrote:

> ... And even if we take a neutral idea, to "bend"
anger would be to
> divert it from some course. Now, logically that could mean to
divert
> anger that would have come but is now turned away. For your
meaning, it
> would have to be an idea something like, anger that would have
been
> directed elsewhere (but where?) is now diverted to the matter in
> question. ...

Peter Kirk responded:

Well, it could mean something rather different. The anger is simply 
diverted to other parties. The two who are reconciled by a bribe are
no 
longer angry with one another, but it is likely that others will
become 
angry, not only if they find out about the bribe but when they
discover 
that their rights or interests are ignored, because of the bribe 
although they don't know that. (And I know what I am talking about -
I 
have lived in a country where bribery is rampant, and people often
find 
that they can't get their due and suspect that is because someone
else 
has bribed the official against them.)


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