Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>]

> > Lord God brought forward the man. Dust of the ground blew into his face. 
> > The man became a breath of life to a living soul.
>
> Whatever you may think of it exegetically, it is based on such a total 
> misunderstanding of Hebrew syntax that I will simply suggest that you go 
> away and learn some elementary Hebrew rather than expect me to correct 
> your obvious mistakes.

Peter, I have no idea why do you consider your knolwedge of Hebrew above 
elementary.

What does my translation have to do with syntax? It is a matter of 
punctuation. And I don't expect you to correct my mistakes - because there 
are none. True, with certain laxity toward punctuation many Hebrew phrases 
could be read alternatively, but in this case I feel justified in changing 
Masoretic punctuation.

Now, I will point some problems with your preferred translation.

1. alah min has the attested meaning of "to go away" to another land. To use 
for [the mist] "emerge" is gross twisting.
2. Ancients were somewhat of farmers, and knew that mist could not suffice 
to water the land.
3. The meaning of 'ed as "mist" is entirely arbitrary, especially since 
Hebrew has an attested word for "mist" or "dew." If 'ed is related to 
Akkadian at all, it is rather something related to "upheaval," conforming 
with the root meaning "to turn."
4. hishka has an established connotation of giving a drink to the thirsty. 
In a few instances, like "giving a drink to the alley," it is also very 
pinpointed. hishka cannot reasonably mean large-scale watering.
5. The translation "nostrils" is entirely arbitrary. That meaning is very 
rare, and the entries translated as "nostrils" could be equally translated 
as "face," at least in most cases.
6. puah b means to "blow into someone's face", to reject. It entirely lacks 
the meaning "to breath the life into someone." Ezekiel, indeed, uses the 
word in such sense, but his line is based upon the Gen2:6.
7. izr or nzr has no connotation of making something from something else. It 
is (nzr), "to branch out," "to bring forward," or, at the most (izr), "to 
dedicate" or "to creatively, mentally form."

All this besides the supposed sheer stupidity of putting two contradictory 
accounts of the creation together.

Vadim Cherny