Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 4/11/06, Karl Randolph wrote:

> As for XBRBRH, you may be right that it refers to
> markings in general, and the translation in Isaiah
> 53 of "stripes" may be wrong.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.

In Isaiah 53, the simplest way to read the word is
either as some kind of wound, following Gen 4:23
(parallelism), Exodus 21:25, and Proverbs 20:30,
or as unrelated or distantly related to a wound
because of the lack of dagesh in the letter bet.
A meaning of "wound" could refer to the spots on
the leopard, which may have been metaphorically
compared to wounds.  Perhaps further, the author
is using elements that in other creatures can be
shed (a wound can heal, a snake can shed its skin)
but in this specific case (the leopard), the "wounds"
will never heal.

Yitzhak Sapir
http://toldot.blogspot.com