Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Maurice A. O'Sullivan" <mauros AT iol.ie>]

At 15:13 30/12/2004, Charles Rempel wrote:

> The words for Wonderful Counselor in Isaiah 9:6 are translated without a
> comma in the NASB and with a comma in KJV. I haven't learned the conventions
> for writing Hebrew here, so I'll just say that the word for Wonderful is a
> common noun masculine singular and the the word for counselor is Qal
> participle masculine singular. I know that th Qal participle is used in a
> nominative sense and so could be translatd as a separate characteristic of
> Christ. Is there anything which would contribute to translating one way or
> the other?

Charles:
As recently as Sept  of this year, this topic arose on the list.

At that time  I pointed out [posting of Sept 14 ]:
***********************************************************
Blenkinsopp,  [Joseph, trans. Isaiah 1-39. 19. Anchor Bible, Albright, W.F; 
Freedman, David Noel. New York: Doubleday, 2000.] chooses the translation " 
Marvellous Counselor " but footnotes it: >> it is not clear how >pele< ( 
wonder, miracle ) and >yo'ets< ( counselor) relate syntactically 
since >pele< is a substantive, not an adjective; the uncertainty is 
reflected in the versions.<<

Perhaps it was this syntactical puzzle which led the translators of the 
Jerusalem Bible ( and the translator of the New Jerusalem Bible to follow 
suit ) to render the four throne names as: "Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty-God, 
Eternal-Father, Prince-of-Peace"

BTW, I see that the JPS Tanakh (1985 edition and the revised e-edition of 
1997) renders 9:5b:
>> he has been named "The Mighty God is planning grace ; The Eternal 
Father, a peaceable ruler" <<
with a cross-reference to Is. 25:1
************************************************************************************************************************************

Additionally, another posting ( ? from "Harold R. Holmyard III" ) read:


> The phrase Karl translates as "Father of Time" (Abi-ad) is interestingly 
> one word in the BHS edition of the Hebrew text, though the lexicons I have 
> do not handle it that way. They divide it into )BY ("father") and (D 
> ("time, eternity").

and on this poinrt,  Blenkinsopp writes:
>>  >'abi'ad< "Eternal Father", is a rare but not unattested formation ( 
cf. Hab 3:6  >harere-'ad< "eternal mountains" )


Maurice A. O'Sullivan  [ Bray, Ireland ]
mauros AT iol.ie