Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

> > They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker who ceaseth to
> > stir from kneading of the dough until it is humtzato.
> > "adulterers like an oven" surely makes no sense. More plausibly, here is
> > poetic transposition, and Hosea means, "they are adulterers like the
baker."
> > The baker does nothing while the dough is in the oven, and Hosea accuses
the
> > people of similarly abandoning their duties.
>
> HH: Here is the NIV translation:
>
> Hos. 7:4 They are all adulterers, burning like an
> oven whose fire the baker need not stir from the
> kneading of the dough till it rises.

Probably you know Hebrew sufficiently to see that that translation is
divorced from the Hebrew text.

> > In any case, the dough is in the oven, and does not leaven anymore, but
is
> > baked. (Any woman here on the list who ever tried to bake?) "from
kneading
> > until humtzato" cannot mean "from kneading until leavening", that's
absurd.
> > It could only mean, "from kneading until being baked."
>
> HH: I have made bread. There is a kneading
> process, and afterwards the dough is left to rise.

In the oven??

Vadim Cherny