Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Kenneth:
Who translates it as "kill"? On second thought, does it matter who? Let's
look at its uses.

Genesis 47:18 superficially to be hidden, or another way, you got the whole
story, nothing has been pared away.

Exodus 9:15 you and your people will be pared off from the land

Joshua 7:19 "what did you do? Do not pare off (hold back anything) from me."

1 Samuel 3:17, 18 tell me the whole truth, don't pare off (hold back)
anything.

Psalm 83:5 we will cause to pare them off from being a nation

And so forth.

Basically, we are looking at the action like that of a gardener who trims
his garden, trees and vines, here applied to peoples and statements.

Looking at a dictionary I find, "trim (something) by cutting away its outer
edges" or further, "reduce (something) in size, extent, quantity, or number,
usually in a number of small successive stages" and in a thesaurus,
"reduce, diminish, decrease, cut
(back/down), trim, slim down, prune". There may be a better way to say this,
but is not the action clear?

As for Exodus 23:23, this is either a hiphil (causative) verb ("that I will
cause him to pare" i.e. cut back on the peoples listed) or I think the
context indicates that this is a noun with a prefixed definite article,
referring to the messenger's action of paring away the listed nations:
either way, the meaning is that the messenger is the actor, not the object
acted on.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Feb 8, 2008 6:58 AM, kenneth greifer <greifer AT hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> Why do is the verb in Exodus 23:23 (or Ex. 23:20?) translated as "to kill"
> instead of "to hide"? My dictionaries say it can mean "to hide" also. Maybe
> it says that G-d will hide or conceal the angel?
>
> Kenneth Greifer
> http://www.messianicmistakes.com/
>
>