Karl: There is an occurrence in Ruth 1:13 Karl and Jim: Actually Gen. 49:8 appears to be verbless. And there does appear to be a theme of dominance: יָדְךָ֖ בְּעֹ֣רֶף אֹיְבֶ֑יךָ although a case may be made that "neck of your enemies" is a strong syntactic coloration. I will need to look into R. Heard's thesis in deeper detail. Having regard to the story's internal structure I remain unconvinced that the reported communication to Hagar is "Ishmael will be at war with everybody; and everybody with him." If an element of conflict is to be imputed, it should not be too grim or bloody, or the ending "everybody with him" would be quite catastrophic and final. Or how about - "Ishmael will struggle with everybody; and everybody with him." "Ishmael will compete with everybody; and everybody with him." In my opinion also, the co-operative idea is far from ruled out, because the construction יָדֹ֣ו בַכֹּ֔ל וְיַ֥ד כֹּ֖ל בֹּ֑ו communicates a complementarity not found in any other occurrence, almost analogous to yad b'yad. This seems to be the idea behind the Onkelos rendering. Everybody: Any suggestions as to translation? Any more comments, for or against? Betty Chan
From: [email protected] Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2011 10:01:35 -0500 Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Gen 16:12 Hand Against? To: [email protected]; [email protected] CC: [email protected] Karl wrote: “I am not aware of the one in Ruth (didn’t find it) but the ones I found are Genesis 16:12 (of course), 49:8, Exodus 7:4, 1 Samuel 18:17, 24:6, 10, 26:9, 11, 23, 2 Samuel 18:28, 20:21, 24:17, 1 Kings 11:26–27, Esther 2:21, 3:6, 6:2, 8:7, 9:2, Daniel 11:42, 1 Chronicles 21:17. From these examples, with the verbs HYH and $LX, or understood verb to be, YD B- indicates opposition, attacking.” Karl is right where the Hebrew verb HYH is actually there. But where the Hebrew verb HYH is not there in the Hebrew text, and E-n-g-l-i-s-h needs to put in the E-n-g-l-i-s-h verb “to be” for an E-n-g-l-i-s-h translation, the case is far from clear, to say the least. A majority of scholars have followed Karl’s traditional view. But Genesis scholar R. Christopher Heard, having thoroughly examined that traditional view, rejects it: “The second element in the messenger’s prenatal characterization of Ishmael [at Genesis 16: 12] is similarly ambiguous. Most interpreters think the narrator wishes to portray Ishmael and his descendants as people of conflict, and thus they render the phrase something like ‘his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him’ (Alter, 1996:71; Dillmann:72-73; Driver:182; Hamilton, 1990:449, 454; Sarna:121; Wenham, 1994:2, 11; Westermann:234; cf. Gunkel:188; von Rad:194; Vaswter:217). The case for this translation seems strong; in twenty-seven of the thirty-three cases where, as here, ‘hand’ is followed by the proposition b (‘in, against’) prefixed to a noun designating a person, group of people, or inhabited region, the sense is adversarial. Yet it is also true that in each of those cases, ‘hand’ is the object of ‘give’ (natan, as in Exod. 7:4), ‘be’ (haya, as in Josh. 2:19), ‘stretch out’ (salax, as in Esth. 2:21). ‘lift’ (nasa, as in 2 Sam 18:28), or ‘raise’ (the hip(il of rum, as in 1 Kgs 11:26, 27). In four of the remaining six cases, the sense is one of assistance, and ‘hand’ is the object of ‘strengthen’ or ‘hold’ (the pi(el or hip(il of hazaq, as in Gen 21:8 and 1 Sam 23:16), ‘rest’ (nux, as in Isa 25:10), or ‘touch’ (naga, as in Dan 10:10). Judging by these examples, the verb that takes ‘hand’ as its object also determines whether the sense is adversarial or not when ‘hand’ is followed by b prefixed to a noun designating a person, group, or inhabited region. In the Hebrew of Gen 16:12, however, no verb governs ‘his hand’ or ‘everyone’s hand’. Translators frequently supply some form of ‘to be’ when translating Hebrew verbless clauses. This might suggest an adversarial sense for the present case, since ‘to be’ followed by ‘hand’ followed by b prefixed to a noun referring to a person, group, or inhabited region has an adversarial sense everywhere this construction appears in the Hebrew Bible. However, the translation of verbless clauses using a form of ‘to be’ is not a matter of supplying a missing Hebrew verb (haya), but of representing in translation the common Hebrew syntactical strategy for coordinating two elements in a sentence without using any verb at all (see Andersen). The messenger’s speech thus presents readers with the challenge of deciding whether to impute an adversarial or cooperative sense to the statement about Ishmael’s hand. Without a verb to govern ‘hand’, ‘hand’ followed by b can go either way.” “Dynamics of Diselection” (2001), at pp. 69-70. In my view, the phrase is inherently, and deliberately, ambiguous. If the phrase unequivocally stated that Ishmael would spend his life in hand to hand combat with others, that would not work in context, because the angel is trying to induce Hagar to return to Sarah’s harsh treatment. Jim StinehartEvanston, Illinois _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
