Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <vadim_lv AT center-tv.net>]

Karl,

> Look at 2 Kings 1:1, 3:5,7, 8:20, 22 and so forth: these are examples of 
> vassal nations rebelling against their overlord. P$( in these verses 
> clearly refers to rebellion, and it is often used of man's rebellion 
> against God. (It might mean "crime" in modern Hebrew, but that's irrelevant 
> to this verse.) <

The honest translator must relate the grammatical meaning of the word, 
leaving it to the reader tho choose from various interpretational 
possibilities. "A criminal" in English might mean someone who committed a 
rape or a high treason. Similarly, pesha refers to wide variety of crimes, 
and no grammatical reasoning justifies, of all these meanings, the narrow and 
arbitrary "rebellion."

> The construct LMW occures over 50 times in Tanakh. Though the majority of 
> its uses are for plural subjects, it refers to what is unquestionably a 
> singular subject often enough that the numerical value of the -MW cannot be 
> determined from the form. The only people I have run into before who 
> insisted that LMW had to be plural did so for ideological, not linguistic, 
> reasons. <

I have a concordance in front of me. Where, do you think, lmo refers to 
singular?
Take Gen 9:26, which Harold brings forward as the most relevant to singular. 
Canaan will the slave of Shem. Of course, Noah does not speak of one person 
becoming a slave to another, but rather of their posterity. The collective 
plural of the people of Shem is lmo. We the same concept of "plural as a 
whole" with suffix -ot, such as Zvaot.

 
Vadim Cherny
>From vadim_lv AT center-tv.net  Sat Dec 11 13:35:30 2004
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From: "Vadim Cherny" <vadim_lv AT center-tv.net>
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Subject: [b-hebrew] Isaiah 53:8
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Karl Randolph wrote:

> The -MW suffix is used well over 170 times in Tanakh, less than a third of 
> those connected to the L- prefix. When we take into account all the uses of 
> the suffix, there are several times that it refers to a singular object. 
> That is more than the at least three times (Genesis 9:26-27, Isaiah 44:15) 
> that it is connected to the L- prefix referring to a singular object. 
> Examples include Genesis 19:15 referring to the dawn, Exodus 15:5 where it 
> refers to "a stone", shall I go on? You need to refer to all of these uses, 
> not to restrict yourself to those connected to the L- prefix. <

It seems you confuse two different words: lmo and lamo. 
lmo points to intensity, thus usually the collective plural. But even then, I 
would suggest that lmo in Gen19:15 actually refers to the preceding sentence, 
plural.
lamo is probably lahemo, thus only the plural. Your citation of Is44:15 is 
out of place: the prophet speaks of the multitude of heathen images, not of 
just one. Waw here is not 3ms, but collective plural, normally encountered as 
-ot (zvaot) or -on (helbon).
Also, your translation ignores a direct antecedent for lamo, which is 
"people." Any mention of the hero is far away. You might agree that the 
Hebrew normally refers to the closest antecedent.

> Biblical Hebrew language lacked a generalized term for "sin",<

The Hebrew does not "lack" a general term for sin. It is a matter of 
philosophy: Jews do not lump together the different sins. Modern lawyers also 
clearly distinguish between crime and misdemeanor: not because they "lack" 
the term.
Just as the lawyers distinguish crime and misdemeanor based not on ethics, 
but on the punishment, so the Jews did have meaningful generalizations of 
pesha, avon, and het based on the prescribed purification. Milgrom analyzed 
that in great detail.
In any case, your narrow translation "rebellion" for "crime" is like 
translating War and Peace, "War of 1812 and the subsequent peace treaty." 
Let's translate, not read Isaiah's mind.

Vadim Cherny
>From leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il  Sat Dec 11 14:48:55 2004
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From: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Isaiah 53:8
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 20:37:41 +0200
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Karl,

I agree that Biblical Hebrew does not have a word that is exactly equivalent
to the Modern English "sin". I don't think that the biblical writers had a
concept that was exactly equivalent to the Christian concept of "sin". Nor
did they have a concept that was exactly equivalent to the modern one of
"crime". So obviously, we must translate as best as we can. Your
explanations for x+) is well-known. (wn is less clear. But to assume that
all cases of p$( mean rebel does not work. There is a perfectly common word
for "rebel" - MRD. The use of "pa$a( b..." for "rebel against" is in itself
a figure of speach - the overlord assumes that he rules by "right", and so
the rebel is committing a "wrong" by rebelling. Maybe it would be better to
translate p$( as "wrong" rather than "crime".

Yigal
----- Original Message -----
From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
To: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2004 11:27 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Isaiah 53:8


> Yigal:
>
> In reading Tanakh, I found that the Biblical Hebrew language lacked a
generalized term for "sin", rather several specific terms were used: the
three most common are (WH or (WWN with the concept of twisting or
perverting, P$( with the concept of rebelling and the archery term X+)
meaning to miss the target (incidently, when the Jewish writers of the New
Testament looked at KoinИ Greek and saw it too lacked a generalized term for
"sin", they used the archery term referring to missing the target, wonder
where they got that idea from?).
>
> Come to think of it, I don't think there is a generalized term for "crime"
in Tanakh, while many specific crimes are mentioned, e.g. stealing,
kidnapping, murder, etc.
>
> Even in Amos 1 - 2, Amos wrote from a viewpoint that there is only one God
who made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that there is in them,
and that all the gods of the nations were nothing, connected with the fact
that the nations around Israel had heard these claims, so for them to
continue following their gods was considered the same as rebellion.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
>
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
> > > Look at 2 Kings 1:1, 3:5,7, 8:20, 22 and so forth: these are examples
of
> > vassal nations rebelling against their overlord. P$( in these verses
clearly
> > refers to rebellion, and it is often used of man's rebellion against
God.
> > (It might mean "crime" in modern Hebrew, but that's irrelevant to this
> > verse.)
> > >
> >
> > Karl, while it is true that the verb Pa$a(  b... means "rebel against",
it
> > can be used to rebel against either a human overlord or God. The noun
Pe$a(,
> > however, means "crime". It is often paralelled by X+) "sin", because the
> > Bible is a book about the raelationship between God and man, and to
commit a
> > crime against God is to sin, but it still means "crime". Gen. 50:17, or
for
> > that matter Amos 1 and 2, certainly have nothing to do with rebellion,
> > unless you are to consider any crime a rebellion.
> >
> > Yigal
> --
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