Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Peter,

> It may be consistent to translate "heart", but it is wrong. As I 
> pointed out before, Hebrew LEB nowhere refers to the heart as an 
> organ.

HH: You can't prove that it doesn't refer to the organ, and there are 
verses that suggest it, for example Ex 28:29, where the breastpiece 
is worn over the heart. The Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew gives 
fifteen verses where they think it means the physical heart, and 
other five verses where they think it is possible.

>  The words have only a limited domain of semantic overlap, which 
> certainly does not cover this expression. If you want to preserve 
> the thematic repetition (although a rather weak one if it occurs 
> only one per 8 chapters on average), a better way to do so would be 
> to translate "he said to himself".

HH: In general, LB can be translated heart. That is how the lexicons 
translate it. But it can cover a lot of ideas and so context is the 
key. In this concept of "say in the heart" I don't have a problem 
with "said to himself" or "thought to himself." But I think there are 
places where heart might be good, even with this phrase.

                                        Yours,
                                        Harold Holmyard