Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Heard, Christopher" <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>]

Karl,

Thanks for the comments. I do have some follow-up questions for you and all
other interested parties.

> First of all, I dont like adding to the text, so that rules out #2 below.

I don't like adding to the text either, but does that really rule out the
NIV rendering? Are they really adding anything to the text, or just making
an indefinite subject of the verb explicit in English, which requires such
explicitness? The old RSV does the same thing: "Can one break ... ?" I think
both of those assume a literal "Can he break ... ?" and simply make the
indefinite subject, implicit in the Hebrew verb, explicit in the receptor
languge. _IF_ the translators of NIV and old RSV are reading the verse
rightly, of course, which they may not be. But I don't think they're
conceptually adding any words to the Hebrew.

> I read the text unpointed, which gives:
> 
> HYR( BRZL BRZL MCPWN WNX$T

Okay for now. But the Masoretes did not invent their vocalizations or their
verse divisions out of thin air. Those vocalizations and divisions represent
the visualization of an audible tradition, and count for a lot in my book.
So I am predisposed to follow the Masoretic vocalizations and divisions
where they make sense.

> When faced with a verse that does not have a readily understood meaning, as
> does this one, I then ask what are the various possibilities. In this one, 
> the
> only word that can have come from different roots is the verb (in 
> alphabetical
> order):
> 
> YR( to flutter or flap (in the wind) from the same root as YRY( curtain
> RW( to sound forth (a trumpet)
> R(H to feed
> R(( to be displeasing from which we get the derived meaning that that which 
> is
> evil or bad is displeasing, hence bad or evil.

KB lists two verbs spelled R((, which they give as R(( I "to be displeasing"
and R(( II "to smash, shatter." Clearly the translators of JPS, old RSV,
NRSV, and NIV all take this to be R(( II. So too JB and NEB. KB cites Jer
15:12 for the usage of R(( II. So too BDB, Holladay, and the old Gesenius
lexicon. That's a pretty impressive range of agreement on which verb this
is.

> A final question, is the prefix H- the definite article or sign of the
> interrogative?

Or for that matter the sign of a 2ms niphal or hiphil imperative, or
infinitive? Or hophal infinitive? There are lots of reasons to affix a H-.
But let's not get too bizarre.

If the H- is a definite article then the verb must be a participle, "the one
breaking"?

> And we cant leave out the possibility that the subject for the verb may be
> found in verse 11.
>
> If the prefix H- is a definite article. that limits the verb to YR( pointing
> to a subject in verse 11. The context points to the enemies coming from
> Babylon, a country, unless Im mistaken, has no iron itself, but must import
> it, and unless Im mistaken, the easiest place for Babylon to import it from 
> at
> that time was from the former Hittite empire in the north. In this case, the
> translation would refer to the enemy the one flapping (waving is better in
> English) iron (alluding to weapons), iron from the north, even bronze. That
> also fits the context of the following verse where the enemy takes Judea, 
> its
> forces and treasures, that God has given it.

_If_ one ignores the Masoretic verse division, and takes YR( as a
participle, this could work. However, I am not persuaded by your lexical
treatment of YR(. In its _one_ attested usage in the Tanakh (not counting
the verse in question, of course), YR( is clearly an intransitive verb. I'm
not really comfortable taking one instance of an intransitive YR( "to
quiver, tremble," where the subject is a _nephesh_, and leaping from that to
a transitive YR( meaning "wave about" with "enemy" as the subject and
"iron," metonymic for weapons, as the direct object. That seems to me a big
leap. Perhaps a case could be made if the verb were a hiphil participle of
YR(, "cause to shake" or something like that, but we clearly don't have that
here. I don't think your usage of YR( will hold up.

Also, I'm not really sure if the "context" of Babylonian incursion is
decisive. Are the "enemies" of v. 11 the Judeans' Babylonian enemies, or are
they Jeremiah's Judean enemies? In the immediate literary context of the
paragraph, the latter makes more sense to me.

> If H- prefix is a sign of the interrogative, then  the subject would be 
> iron,
> and I see no easy translation that fits the context. Look at the four 
> possible
> roots, does any give an easy translation? E.g. Does iron feed iron from the
> north, also bronze? Huh? The same problem exists for a meaning of flapping
> (waving), sounding forth, even to be displeasing though there is probably a
> stronger case for that than the others.

But if you recognize the verb as R(( II, "to break," you get perfectly
sensible readings. The problem is that you get multiple perfectly sensible
readings (depending on what you think the implied answer is) and I'm not
sure how to adjudicate between them.

Chris

-- 
R. Christopher Heard
Assistant Professor of Religion
Armstrong Fellow in Religion
Pepperdine University
http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/cheard
http://www.iTanakh.org
http://www.semioticsandexegesis.info