Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz>]

Oun asked,

> Most newer translations read 'fury, anger, rage' in stead of 'heat' (or
> zeal?).
> 
> Can Hebrew scholars help me, a layman to Hebrew (which is greek to me)?


This is simply a matter of translation style. Translations run a spectrum
from very literal (eg interlinears) through closely following the text (eg
NASB), to dynamic equivalence (eg TEV) through to paraphrases (eg Living
Bible) which aren't really translations in the strict sense of the word.
Most recent translations are of the dynamic equivalence type and they try to
translate thought for thought. Although using the English word `heat' at
this point is probably going to be understandable if the reader thinks about
it, the translators have opted for easy understanding and they have
understood  `heat' to be a Hebrew idiomatic usage for what we would call
anger or fury (a word which is rarely used in my experience) or rage.

P.S. Karl posted a response to me which I normally would have answered but
the thread is now closed so I will remain silent.

Bill Rea Ph.D., ICT Services, University of Canterbury \_
E-Mail bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz                       </   New
Phone 64-3-364-2331, Fax  64-3-364-2332               /)  Zealand
Unix Systems Administrator                           (/'