Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 09/01/2007 20:42, Bill Rea wrote:
> ...
> Martin writes in this article:-
>
>   
> > What if it is true that God has promised (as the Scriptures indicate) to
> > preserve every one of His words and that He has not allowed a single one
> > of them to pass away (i.e. be lost in transmission)?
> >     
>
>   
Bill, do you have a URL for this article? What are the Scriptures which 
Martin has in mind? If he has in mind anything in the Hebrew Bible, he 
should bear in mind that Hebrew doesn't even have a word for "word" in 
the sense of a single lexical item. Here is something which I wrote as a 
comment on http://englishbibles.blogspot.com/2007/01/whats-in-word.html
> Wayne, I won't attempt the full exegesis of Proverbs 30:5-6 which you 
> suggest, as I must do some real work today! But I will make a few 
> points. In 30:5 the word for "word" is אִמְרָה /imra/, and in 30:6 it is 
> דָּבָר /davar/. The former is relatively rare and poetic; the latter is 
> very common. But neither of them refer strictly to words in the 
> lexical sense. Indeed I am not sure that any words in the Bible do 
> this, because I am not sure that this concept of an individual word 
> existed, at least in Hebrew and in the common understanding of Greek. 
> It is only in a highly literate and educated society that there is a 
> clear and popularly understood concept of an individual lexical unit.
>
> Thus /imra/ in the singular is used (often in parallel to /qol/ 
> "voice") of complete utterances in Genesis 4:23, Deuteronomy 32:2, 
> Psalm 17:6 (TNIV "prayer"), Isaiah 28:23, 29:4,4, 32:9. It is also 
> used of God's word in a more general sense, and again usually 
> singular, in Deuteronomy 32:9, 2 Samuel 22:31, Psalm 12:6 (plural), 
> 18:31, 105:19, 138:2 (TNIV oddly "solemn decree"), 147:15, Isaiah 
> 5:24, also 19 times in Psalm 119. These are I think all the 
> occurrences apart from Proverbs 30:5. So if in this last verse the 
> word means "lexical item", that is a unique usage in the whole Hebrew 
> Bible. The meaning in the proverb, if the use of the word elsewhere in 
> the Hebrew Bible is anything to go on, must be something like "Every 
> utterance of God is flawless".
>
> As for /davar/, I can't go into such detail, but one thing is clear: 
> it is commonly used of complete messages rather than individual 
> lexical items. It is used no less than 394 times (according to BDB) of 
> the word of God, at least most commonly in the singular although God 
> didn't usually speak just a single lexical item. The ten "words" 
> (/davar/) are the Ten Commandments, each of which consists of more 
> than one lexical item. I can't find any clear case of /davar/ being 
> used of a single lexical item. Therefore Proverbs 30:6 must refer to 
> adding to God's utterances, or perhaps to adding to the Ten 
> Commandments; it is not about lexical items.

So if Martin is relying on any occurrences of /davar/ or /imra/ for his 
argument, he is entirely misunderstanding the Bible. I don't think he 
will do much better with any other Hebrew word for "word", nor with 
anything in the New Testament. There is simply nothing in the Bible, 
Hebrew or Christian, to support this concept of the preservation of 
lexical items. God's promise is rather that his utterances or messages 
will not be lost.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
Blog:    http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/