Peter:
Having done some blacksmithing as well as other metal work, I now know why
welding was rare and uncertain before the invention of the arc welder. All
the welding I have done is with the arc welder.
I noticed that the two cases where YXD is used, YXD is not alone, but once
with “in”, the other time “with”. ...
... Such a helper word is lacking in the second half of the verse. In the
first half, it may be possible to translate “Iron is joined by (means of)
iron” where the instrumental use of the prefix B- provides the helping word
for YXD, but then there is no corresponding parallelism in the second half of
the verse. Even the instrumental use is problematic as rivet making and
setting is a (now largely lost) art, much of it done historically with bronze
or copper rivets, if not joining through soldering with copper or tin. The
locative use of the B- prefix here does not make sense from a blacksmithing
point of view.
Now we have possible verbs: XDD with the idea of grinding or sharpening, XDHI do. The idea of sharpening iron with iron simply doesn't make sense. Nor does the idea of one person sharpening another - although I know preachers through the centuries have invented a number of imaginative interpretations of this.
encouraging, XWD asking a didactic question often in the form of a riddle and
YXD being together with. Each word is used as a verb fewer than ten times in
Tanakh, most fewer than five. Therefore any statement will have to be only
tentative, one can not state definitely how this verse is read. I personally
find the joining idea raising more questions than answers, while the
sharpening idea gives a clean reading. You are free to disagree with me.
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