Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Firouz:

Interesting question.

“quiet man” is taken from the context that Jacob dwells in the tents.

What we see in the context is a contrast between Jacob and Esau, with Esau
pictured as a one-sided man of hunting and the outdoors. Jacob is pictured
as a more well rounded individual who dwells in tents. Yet, when we look at
the larger context, Jacob is not a weakling (he single-handedly removed a
large stone covering a well for Rachel) and he knew how to be a shepherd (an
outdoors activity) and able to camp out of doors (e.g. on his trip to
Haran), but he is pictured as one who also does the “indoor work” (e.g.
book-keeping), a task that fell on him as his father went blind.

So here we have a “complete man”, which would be more smoothly translated
into English as “well-rounded man”.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 11:31 PM, Andronic Khandjani <andronicusmy AT gmail.com
> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I'm studying Genesis 25 and do not see any reason to translate YSH TaM(אישׁ
> תם ) by "quiet man" in verse 27 rather the plain or innocent as new
> translation do. Could somebody help me to understand?
>
> Firouz Khandjani
>
> bereshith.over-blog.com