18 August 2022 draft-bible
1(2). The versification of the ASV and WEB counts this verse as the first verse of chapter 32, while that of BHS1997 and tanach.us counts this as the second verse. The versification difference then extends down throughout chapter 32 from there.
1(2). angels of God. Hebrew malʾakei ʾelohim, which could be translated either ‘angels of God’ or ‘the angels of God’.
2(3). camp. Hebrew maḥaneh, the place where an army or other group camps while on the move; also a term for the travelling group itself.
5(6). cattle. Hebrew šor, which according to BDB does not specify the sex of the beast. In this case, ‘cattle’ seems a good translation.
7(8). two camps. Hebrew maḥaneh, the same basic word that appears in 2(3).
10(11). kindnesses. Hebrew ḥesed, a word used to refer to kindness, general human decency, and/or one’s adherence to one’s social obligations to others. It is true that it has no exact English equivalent, but it seems to me to be overloading the translation to read it as ‘lovingkindness’.
10(11). faithfulness. Hebrew ʾemet. Although the word is frequently translated ‘truth’, the word lays more stress on faithfulness or reliability than it does on truth in the sense of ‘true or false’ claims.
11(12). On the versification, see 1(2).
15(16) male donkeys. Hebrew ʿayir. Some translations read this as ‘foals’, as opposed to full-grown donkeys, while most recent sources I have consulted, at least in this passage, treat it as ‘male donkeys’, as opposed to female. Given that this item appears at the end of a list of the form “X females and Y (smaller than X) males of a given species”, parallelism would seem to agitate in favor of reading the word here as ‘male donkeys’. For ‘male donkeys’, see NRSV, NET, NIV, NLT, ESV, NASB, CSB. ‘Foals’ is found in the KJV, ASV, JPS 1917, NKJV, and WEB. NHEB changes WEB’s ‘foals’ to ‘male donkeys’.
22(23). eleven sons. Hebrew aḥat-ʿaśar yᵉladav, which KJV renders as ‘eleven children’. But the eleven individuals referred to here must all be sons – if Jacob’s daughter Dinah (see Genesis 30:21) were included, that would make twelve.
24(25). and a man wrestled with him. Hebrew wayyeʾabeq ʾiš ʿimmo, which is most straightforwardly translated ‘and a man wrestled with him’. Various older forms of English would allow ‘and there wrestled a man with him’, as an equivalent. However, it appears that the WEB has misunderstood the sense of ‘there’ as it appears in the archaic English expression, and has updated it, incorrectly, to ‘and wrestled with a man there’.
25(26). _he touched the socket of his hip._ The context makes it clear that it is the mysterious visitor who touches the socket of Jacob’s hip. The WEB supplies here the subject “the man”.
25(26). socket. Hebrew kaf, a word more normally used of the palm of the hand, but also used of various hollows or concavities. In this case, the ‘hollow’ involved is generally thought to be the hip socket.
25(27). hip. Hebrew yarek, also referring to the thigh or the outside of the thigh. The ‘hollow of the thigh’ refers to the hip-socket, so in this passage yarek will be read as ‘hip’.
26(27). And he said … And he said. The context makes clear that the first speaker is the mysterious visitor, and the second is Jacob. The WEB makes this explicit by supplying the subjects “The man” and “Jacob”.
27(28). On the versification, see 1(2).
30(31). Peniel. The Hebrew PNYʾL can be read as PNY ʾL, ‘face of God’.
31(32). Penuel. The Hebrew reads pᵉniʾel in verse 30(31), but pᵉnuʾel here. It is common, in Genesis, that the etymology supplied in a story does not fit perfectly with the name it purports to explain. The WEB, apparently in a bid to clean up the small discrepancy, reads both as “Peniel”.
32(33). sciatic nerve. Hebrew gid ha-našeh. The food taboo referred to in this passage still exists in Judaism, and the gid ha-našeh is the scientic nerve, as can also be confirmed by consulting DCH and HALOT for נשׁה.
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