Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Isaiah 9:6

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: acantley AT iname.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Isaiah 9:6
  • Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 18:36:38 +0100

On 14/09/2004 18:09, al cantley wrote:

Below is a message I saved some years ago from another forum - could the
interpretation be correct?

"You mentioned the verse in Isaiah (namely Is. 9:6) where the pastor was
asking about all the various "names" of God. I have the greatest Bible!!!!
It's called The Holy Name Bible by the Scripture Research (now out of print, I
believe) but let me quote the text for you here. A small grammatical word
left out can make a big difference.
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall
be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, of
the Mighty El, of the Father of Eternity; The Prince of Peace."
Read that again and see what a difference it makes that the Son is a counselor
OF the Mighty El. He is also the wonderful counselor OF the Father of
Eternity (He is NOT the Father). He is The Prince of Peace. HalleluYAH !!! "
Blessings, Kathy {MSDA 11/2/99}

Blessings,
Al Cantley


Well, both adding and removing a small word can indeed change the meaning. And I think this translation has added at least one if not two, rather than other translations leaving them out.

If we ignore the accents and traditional line breaks, YOW`EC 'EL GIBBOWR could I suppose mean "counsellor of the mighty God", either as a construct chain or with 'EL GIBBOWR being understood as the object of a verbal participle. But I really don't think that construct chain or object can be extended so far as to include 'ABI`AD as a part of it in apposition. I suppose the text could just about be redivided entirely as YOW`EC 'EL, GIBBOWR 'ABIY`AD "counsellor of God, mighty one of the eternal Father". (I'm not quite sure how PELE' fits into either of these two interpretations.) But that goes against both Jewish and Christian traditions of dividing up and understanding the text.

Meanwhile I note that LXX: EGW GAR AXW EIRHNHN EPI TOUS ARCONTAS "for I will bring peace on to the rulers" could be understood as a translation of 'ABIY' `AD &AR $ALOWM "I will bring as far as the ruler peace". So 'ABIY`AD was apparently by those translators as two words, and an alef was supplied to make the first one into a hiphil form of BW'. I suppose it is not impossible that this was the original reading, but bear in mind that the MT consonantal text is already well attested at Qumran.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/






Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page