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  • From: ben.crick AT argonet.co.uk (Ben Crick)
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] ISA 42:3 LE'EMET
  • Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 00:26:13 +0000

On Wed 21 Mar 2007 (16:38:31), brocine AT twcny.rr.com wrote:
> What do you think it means? Do you suppose it might mean "for a
> faithful (or sincere) person"?

Le`e:MeT = "in truth" or "truly"; in an adverbial sense.
The Servant will be faithful to his role; which is to bring forth
Mi$:Pa+ to the Gentiles. Mi$:Pa+ is not necessarily condemnation;
it is a revelation of what YHWH considers to be right. It is the
"verdict" rather than the "sentence"; and it will be "true to the
facts".

Vv 2-3 seem to be rather negative; it says what the Servant will
not do, rather than what he will do. But this is a Litotes - denying
the opposite in order to assert the positive. He will not rant and
shout in the streets like a noisy demagogue. He has not come to
threaten, but to encourage.

V 4 continues: he will not "fizzle out" or "retire hurt" (be bruised
off; taking YaRuC from root RCC to bruise (by parallelism) until he
has finished his task of bringing YHWH's Revelation to the whole
earth. uW for oW appears in Proverbs 29:6 (YaRuWN) and Psalm 91:6
(Ya$uWD). RCC means to bruise transitively; but Delitzsch points
out that it is used intransitively in Ecclesiastes 12:6.

My $0.02

Ben
--
Revd Ben Crick, BA CF ZFC Ta
<ben.crick AT NOSPAM.argonet.co.uk>
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