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  • From: Harold Holmyard <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Hos 6:4 (was The Pesach prohibition )
  • Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2006 13:28:07 -0500

Vadim Cherny wrote:

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

HH: That was the NIV. Here is the NRSV:

Hos. 7:4 They are all adulterers;
they are like a heated oven,
whose baker does not need to stir the fire,
from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.

HH: These translations are produced by teams of scholars and do represent the Hebrew. A literal translation could be:

All of them are adulterers, like a burning oven a baker ceases from stirring from the kneading of dough until it is leavened.

HH: The idea is that the oven is so hot the baker does not need to do anything to preserve its heat from the kneading until the dough is fully leavened. This is a time consuming process, so if the oven is hot the whole time, it is very hot.

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??

HH: Neither the kneading nor the leavening is done with the dough in the oven. But the oven has to be heated to be ready for the dough when it is leavened. In Hos 7:4 the oven is already hot when the kneading begins and needs no further attention, since it remains hot when the leavening is complete.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard




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