Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

George,

Thank you. Your reasoning makes sense to me, but in light of 23:20, I  
am still wavering and looking for any other assistance before going  
forward.

Chris

On Jul 30, 2005, at 5:29 PM, George F Somsel wrote:

> On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 13:10:21 -0700 "Heard, Christopher"
> <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu> writes:
>
> > I am working through Ezekiel and I am not sure how to take the phrase
> >
> > ???? ??? [GDLY B&R] "those being great of flesh" in Ezekiel
> > 16:26. It's clear enough from the context that the speaker is
> > referring to male genitalia, and the use of ??? [B&R] in Ezekiel
> >
> > 23:20 confirms this. However, I am not sure whether to understand
> > ???? ??? [GDLY B&R] as a reference simply to large genitalia
> >
> > per se, or to _enlarged_ genitalia, that is, erections. NIV, NRSV,
> > and JPS all take it in the latter sense, and translate it as
> > "lustful." The LXX has a fairly literalistic translation,
> > ?e?a??s????? [MEGALOSARKOS], "big-fleshed." Neither the
> >
> > Hebrew word-pair nor the Greek word appear elsewhere in the Tanakh
> > or
> > LXX, so I don't have any comparative data there to work with. Does
> > anyone know of any good evidence, e.g. uses of the Hebrew phrase or
> >
> > Greek word in extra-biblical sources, or similar phrases in cognate
> >
> > languages, that would help me solidify this translation, or is it an
> >
> > irreducible ambiguity? Anybody know why NIV, NRSV, JPS read this as
> >
> > they do?
> > --
> > R. Christopher Heard
> > Assistant Professor of Religion
> > Pepperdine University
> > Malibu, California 90263-4352
> > http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/cheard
> > http://www.iTanakh.org
> > http://www.semioticsandexegesis.info
> _______________________________________________
>
> The phrase WaT.:F:Y"K: )eT_RaG:LaYiK: "you spread your legs" in the
> preceding verse would seem to imply a sexual activity and thus an  
> erect
> penis would seem to be referenced.  I somewhat doubt that the prophet
> would have been concerned with the mere physical size of their  
> genitalia
> aside from the reason for its size.
>
> george
> gfsomsel
> ___________

--
R. Christopher Heard
Assistant Professor of Religion
Pepperdine University
Malibu, California 90263-4352
http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/cheard
http://www.iTanakh.org
http://www.semioticsandexegesis.info