Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Mark Eddy" <markeddy AT adams.net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. Joel M. Hoffman [mailto:joel AT exc.com] 
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2005 1:21 PM

>Why should not the Hebrew text be read without emendation or changing the
>meaning of the verb by reading ZaROTH as the subject, LBaBiY as the object,
>and HiRCHiYBU in the normal hiphil sense "enlarge"?

JH: I think this is the source of your confusion.  The "normal hiphil
sense" is two-fold: "enlarge [something else]" and "get bigger." Cf
HIGDIL, which means to make something else GADOL, or to "do GADOL."

ME: This is true for GDL, but is it true for all Hebrew verbs? Demonstrably
not. The real question is: does the hiphil of RChB have a non-transitive
sense? I'll examine this below.

JH: This alternation is widespread throughout the languages of the world.
English does the same thing (e.g., "the farmer *grows* crops" and "the
crops *grow* every day.""); so does MH.  Hiphil in general does not
need an object.

ME: In your example, if English were Hebrew "the farmer grows crops" would
be hiphil (e.g. Gen 2:9 "YHWH grew trees out of the ground" also Gen. 3:8,
Psalm 104:14) while "the crops grow every day" most often would be qal (e.g.
Gen. 41:6 & 23 "seven ears ... growing" also Psalm 85:12).

JH: The verse is straightforward.

ME: That's my contention.

>Thus the translation into English would be literally "Troubles enlarge my
>heart."
>
>This latter idiom is also used in Psalm 119:32 TaRCHiYB LiBBiY: "You will
>enlarge my heart."

JH: But in Ps 119:32, TaRCHiYB LiBBiY is a good thing, while in Ps 25:17,
ZaROTH HiRCHiYBU is a bad thing.  

ME: How do you know that it is a bad thing? "Trouble" is bad, but it can
produce something good. I have in mind the saying of a later author who
wrote, "we rejoice in trouble, knowing that trouble produce perseverance,
and perseverance character, and character hope." How do we know that the
Psalmist viewed trouble as an unmitigated "bad thing"? Perhaps this Psalm
verse was in the back of the mind of that later writer. If it is a good
thing to "enlarge my heart" in Ps 119:32, why is it a bad thing to "enlarge
my heart" in Ps 25:17? 

JH: They cannot mean the same thing.
And of course the Hebrew makes is clear that they do not.  

ME: How does the Hebrew make it clear that the two Psalm verses do not mean
the same thing? In Ps 25 it is not certain that ZaRoTh is a construct. It is
not clear that LBaBiY is not the object of the verb. Yet it is clear that in
Ps 119 "enlarge my heart" is a Hebrew idiom and it is a good thing. 
The parallelism of the psalms does not require that the first half of the
verse mean the same as the second half. E.g. in Ps 25:18 it is not the same
thing to "look at my affliction and my toil" and to "forgive all my sins".
After looking at the psalmist's problems, God will see the need to forgive
the psalmist's sins.
The first half of the verse can just as easily express the reason for the
petition in the second half of the verse. What I envision is that in the
second half of Ps 25:17 the psalmist asks God to produce what he states is
possible in the first half of the verse. By God's bringing the psalmist out
of distress, He makes it possible for troubles to "enlarge" the psalmist's
"heart."

JH: In Ps 25, troubles are growing, 

ME: This is exactly the point that I am disputing. The hiphil of RChB is
usually transitive. 
It is definitely transitive in Ps 119:32. 
I checked every instance of this verb in the OT. And the hiphils are all
transitive, except in instances where the person who receives the benefit of
the verb is introduced with the Hebrew L (Gen 26:22, Pr 18:16, and Ps 4:2 --
this last passage also contains the word that is the subject of Ps 25:17
ZaR. Ps 4:2 says BZaR HiRChaBTa LiY, literally "in trouble You shall enlarge
for me" or in more idiomatic English "in a tight spot You shall make more
room for me." Again this is a positive thing, not a bad thing.). 
HALOT even translates HiRChiYBU transitively in Ps 25:17, with "heart" as
the object: "to make wide (meaning to lighten the needs of) my heart". HALOT
also sees this as a positive thing, not a bad thing.
In Is 60:5 the qal is used intransitively UPaChaD WRaChaB LBaBeK "and your
heart is in awe [or in dread] and is enlarged/wide." So it appears to me
that the hiphil of RChB is transitive and the qal is intransitive. And it
again appears that in the Hebrew Bible it is always a good thing for the
"heart" to be "enlarged."

JH: while in Ps 119, the author's mind 
(note - not "heart" in English) is enlarged.

ME: I don't deny that the Hebrew and English understandings of "heart" are
not entirely the same. But I don't see how Hebrew "heart" = English "mind."
The English idiom is based in large part on centuries of reading the Bible,
which translated LeB and LBaB as "heart." If we are to accept the
interpretation of Ps 25:17 that is embodied in most translations and
commentaries, does the Hebrew really mean "the troubles of my mind have
multiplied"? Does that mean that the psalmist's troubles are "all in his
head"? Then he should just ask God to change his "mind" rather than get him
out of the distressing situations. Isn't the LeB or LBaB in Hebrew more than
the "mind" of English? It seems to me that the LeB includes a person's
"will" and may include "all that is within me" as in "love YHWH your God
with all your "heart." It appears to me that in Ps 25:17 the troubles are
external to the "heart" and produce an effect on it.

The more I look at this, the less I like what commentators and translators
have done to this phrase.

Mark Eddy