Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Moshe Shulman <mshulman AT ix.netcom.com>]

At 08:38 AM 12/22/2004 -0600, you wrote:
> Dear list,
> > In a message dated 12/21/2004 7:15:54 PM Central Standard Time,
> > mshulman AT ix.netcom.com writes:
> > >  If one interprets when translating one can make a verse mean anything. The
> > >  word 'conceive' is not there.  The problem of the language implying the
> > >  female having 'seed' led to a number of interesting comments by the Rabbis
> > I wont to point out another prophesy, in addition to the promise of a virgin
> > birth, there is also a promise to Satan that he shall have a "seed."  Now
> > that's scarry, Satan with an offspring.
> HH: The Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew does give "conceive" as a meaning 
> for the Hiphil of ZR(.

I would probably translate it as conceive also, but that does not really 
give the true nuance of the word. As I pointed out, another word is used in 
Hebrew when we want to say a women conceived, or became pregnant. I cannot 
think of a counter example to this. Remember the assertion made there was 
about the use of the word ZR(. This is one of the examples where ZR( is 
applied associated with a female and not implying a virgin birth.  (Try 
Gen. 16:10) for as similar example.


> [By the way, they note without comment that the Samaritan text of Lev 12:2 
> uses the Niphil instead of the Hiphil for ZR(.] Although the Hiphil of ZR( 
> might suggest "produce seed," since that is a legitimate meaning for the 
> word in regard to plants, it may also be a decorous term for what happens 
> in a woman. Surely you would not want to say that she "sprouted." What 
> makes me sympathetic with Doug's idea is that a man obviously deposits 
> seed. Since ancients could see that, whether they understood anything 
> about an egg would not be so important. They would have seen that the man 
> planted seed in the woman. So the Hiphil of ZR( may have been a term to 
> indicate that this seed germinated.
>
>                                         Yours,
>                                         Harold Holmyard
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