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  • From: Barry <nebarry AT verizon.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Deuteronomy 32:8-9
  • Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2012 23:43:48 -0500

On 12/26/2012 4:13 PM, kenneth greifer wrote:
Deut.32:8-9 says something like "...when He divided the sons of man, He set the
borders of peoples to the number of the sons of Israel, because the portion of the L-rd
is His people, Jacob, the portion of His inheritance."

I was thinking that maybe it says "...when He divided the sons of a man (not
mankind), He set the borders of peoples to the number of the sons of Israel, because
the L-rd divided His people, Jacob, the portion of His inheritance."

Maybe Jacob's sons were peoples like Gen. 28:3 says an assembly of peoples
would come from him. Maybe G-d divided the sons of a man (Jacob) and set the
borders for the peoples who came from him, the tribes of Israel.

I have read that adam can mean man or mankind, so maybe the usual translation
is wrong. Any opinions?

"Sons of..." is a common Hebrew idiom for "descendents." In this case, it can only mean the descendents of Adam as the human race. Note the parallelism between the nations, the sons of Adam and the borders of the peoples. This again suggests that the phrase refers to the human race as a whole.

BTW, if you hit reply all, it does not send to everyone in your address book, but only those listed in the "from" and "cc" fields in the specific email to which you are responding. Hitting "reply all" in b-Hebrew means you send a copy to the list and to the specific person who wrote the response (so he or she gets two copies and every other subscriber gets 1). Thunderbird has a nifty "reply to list" feature that helps avoid that, but most email clients don't have that. So if you want everyone on the list to read your responses, the safest thing to do is hit "reply all."


--
N.E. Barry Hofstetter
Semper melius Latine sonat
The American Academy
http://www.theamericanacademy.net
The North American Reformed Seminary
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Bible Translation Magazine
http://www.bible-translation.net

http://my.opera.com/barryhofstetter/blog




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