Hello Eliot, On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 12:54:10 -0800, "Eliot Fintushel" <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm a student of biblical Hebrew, building on my rudimentary > childhood familiarity, and a dramatist--I'm preparing an ensemble > piece, in Hebrew and English, with lots of movement, for dancers and > actors. Part of our text comes from Job, and I'm trying to > understand it as well as I can . . . > > I notice that the Hebrew word ordinarily translated as"bless" here > seems to mean its opposite--curse. I know that lots of people have > commented on this over the centuries. Can you tell me what your take > is on this, or what is the current consensus, if any? In particular, > is it simply a scribal obfuscation, a matter of substituting a less > offensive word, or is this use of ברך not unique to Job, or does it > possibly point to something deeper?
The usual explanation is that indeed it is substitution of an offensive word (in context). I'm not entirely happy with this explanation, but I cannot offer an alternative. -- William Parsons μη φαινεσθαι, αλλ' ειναι. _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
