Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

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/