Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Oun wrote:,_

> I can see that. The problem I have is that these two are not similar at all.
> 
> When I read, there is nothing I can spot to help me about its context,
> though some commentaries say that he was angry about the situation
> around.
> 
> But is it true to the context? Is there anything in the text to tell
> me which fits the context well? (Of course, I have not spent time to
> read whole chapter and chapter before and after, where I may find it.)

The problem is not that we have words with unclear meaning or thorny
questions of syntax and grammar but that we have a lack of shared
experience. This verse comes at the end of Ezekiel's vision and he is
describing his state during that time. Few people have experienced visions
so its very difficult for us to grasp how he feels. The more closely literal
translations have it easier, the word in question can validly be taken as an
equivalent to the English heat and so they just run with that. They leave
the job of understanding what it means to the reader. For the dynamic
equivalence type translations they have a more difficult job. The burden of
understanding the text is placed more heavily on the translators. There are
other places in the Hebrew Bible where this word is used and it is used to
mean anger elsewhere. As you rightly observe, this doesn't necessarily help
us because the question is -- what is he angry about? Its possible he has
taken on the anger of God. God is angry with Israel, Ezekiel is being
appointed a prophet and so is filled with God's anger after the vision. Its
plausible that is what he means, but that's about as far as we can go. I
looked at some other translations, one used the word raging. I thought that
was quite good because raging can take on a meaning that doesn't have
anything to do with anger, eg a raging fire. So the range of translations
you see are a reflection of a difficulty in understanding the verse rather
than the individual words having an unclear meaning like you might get with
a hapax.

I haven't translated this passage myself but after a short look at it and
what others have done I would probably stick with heat as my English
equivalent. It can easily be justified. My second choice would be raging.
I think translating it as anger, or fury, or rage is too limiting and I
would not use those words myself.

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                           (/'