draft-bible 13 August 2022
1. beast. See the note on 2:19.
1. Has God really said. This is a reasonable updating of the archaic Yea, hath God said.
2. Of the fruit. In the Hebrew text and ASV, this expression is pulled forward to the beginning of the sentence, which I think is an effective way of centering the subject of the conversation.
3. but of the fruit. The ASV accurately reflects the structure of the Hebrew text. The WEB rearranges things somewhat.
3. middle. This is a more contemporary equivalent to the older ‘midst’. I’m not opposed across the board to including ‘midst’, but given that I’m sticking in 2-3 with the somewhat unnatural (to English-speaking ears) word order of the Hebrew text, I choose ‘middle’ over ‘midst’ so as not to overload the text with unusual features.
3. nor. In many places where the ASV has ‘neither’, I think ‘nor’ sounds better. This is strictly a stylistic issue, and I don’t intend to comment on it every time this issue rears its head. It is registered in the appendix “Recurring Words” under NOR.
4. will not surely. Here the WEB goes full-on casual, reading, “You won’t really die.” But the WEB is unable to sustain this laid-back wording for any length of time. The next word is for, used in the sense of ‘because’, which just isn’t done in chatty English. And in the previous verse, we find lest. The WEB’s attempt to recast the Hebrew Bible in an informal register is not only inconsistent, it is also unjustified by the Hebrew itself.
5. you eat of it. Hebrew ʾakalkem mimmenu, literally closer to ‘eat of it’ than ‘eat it’.
5. your eyes will be opened. As explained in the appendix “Special Issues”, under the entry Parataxis, I tend to follow the lead of the KJV, ASV, and the advice of Robert Alter is trying when possible to preserve the structure of Hebrew sentences, which are filled with the prefix w-, the rough Hebrew equivalent of the English word ‘and’. Here, however, we come to one of those cases where even a fanatic like myself cannot justify translating w- as ‘and’. If we were to translate that way, this verse would read: “for God knows that in the day you eat of it, and your eyes will will be opened …”. This is, very simply, just not allowed in English.
6. also to her husband. For some reason, it seems like the WEB moves the ‘also’ to the end of the verse, reading ‘and he ate it, too’.
6. ate. The WEB reads ‘ate it’, but there is no ‘it’ in the Hebrew text.
7. the eyes of them both. Hebrew ʿeiney šᵉneihem.
7. loin-cloths. See HALOT and DCH, entries for חגורה.
7. themselves. Placing the indirect object before the direct object, as in the Hebrew.
8. the voice of Yahweh God. I choose this word order over Yahweh God’s voice walking to avoid giving the impression that it is the ‘voice’ that is the subject of the verb ‘walking’.
10. And he said. Hebrew vayomer. The subject is not specified.
10. and I hid. This clause is bound to the previous in Hebrew with the simple Hebrew coordinating conjunction w-, approximately like the English word ‘and’. The substitution of ‘so’ for ‘and’ is one more example of the WEB’s tendency to recast sentences in a less paratactic style than that found in the Hebrew. As usual, I will not follow the WEB on this issue. For more, see the entry Parataxis in the appendix “Recurring Issues”.
11. And he said. Hebrew wayyomer. The subject is not specified.
11. For the second sentence of the verse, the WEB simply updates the language of the ASV.
12. [fruit]. The Hebrew, and the ASV, do not explicitly supply the word “fruit”. The WEB adds it so the English flows better.
12. and I ate. Following the ASV, as no ‘it’ is supplied in the Hebrew.
13. What is this. Hebrew mah-zot, literally, ‘What [is] this?’
13. deceived. This is probably more understandable to today’s readers than beguiled.
13. ate. It is a feature of older English that ‘I did eat’ would be used where today we would have ‘I ate’. See the entry Verbal Forms in the appendix “Recurring Issues”.
14. cursed are you. Verses 14 and 15 are poetry in the Hebrew, and accordingly the word order is chosen more specifically than usual for emphasis. Therefore, I try here to take extra care to mirrow the arrangement of the Hebrew, including in placing cursed at the beginning of a line.
14. beast of the field. As in Genesis 2:19.
14. Upon your belly. Like cursed, earlier in this verse.
14. and dust. Like cursed as well.
15. hostility. This is more easily understood than enmity.
15. seed. As for how this translation approaches the Hebrew term zeraʿ, see the entry SEED in the appendix “Recurring Words’.
15. offspring (WEB). Literally, seed, but offspring is perhaps easier for a reader to understand.
15. They. Hebrew hu, but the referent is zarʿah, ‘her offspring’. In English, this collective noun would demand a plural pronoun.
16. your pain and your conception. An odd pair of phrases. It is easy enough to understand that a curse might include pain, but it would be surprising for a curse to include more conception. Increased fertility is overwhelmingly seen as a positive thing in biblical literature. Several solutions have been proposed to this puzzle.
Any interpretation will need to take some position on the meaning of heron, the term translated here in the ASV as ‘conception’. One proposal is to take it as a reference not specifically to conception, but to pregnancy or the child-bearing process more generally. Paired with ‘thy pain’, then, one interpretation is to read the phrase ‘thy pain and thy heron’ as meaning, roughly, ‘your pain in childbirth’, as the WEB takes it.
Other proposals include reading the term heron as meaning ‘sexual desire’ or ‘trembling’ (see HALOT, DCH).
16. in pain. In both the ASV and the Hebrew, this expression comes before ‘you shall bear children’.
16. for. Or, toward.
17. the man. The Masoretic Text here reads, as pointed, lᵉ-ʾadam, “to Adam”. I am translating on the assumption that the consonantal text should be repointed to read la-ʾadam. See the note on 2:20 for the reasoning behind this emendation, which is supported by BHK and BHS.
17. wife’s voice. One difficulty in translating Hebrew poetry is rendering the often very terse Hebrew wording into English without making the resulting translation more wordy than the original. In this case, the WEB’s shortening of the voice of they wife to your wife’s voice is helpful in this regard.
17. of which. Shorter, and therefore better, than the WEB’s about which. It does not hurt that of which is slightly dated, as the wording of poetry often is, in both English and Hebrew.
17. cursed is. With WEB, mirroring the word order of the Hebrew.
17. in toil. At the front of its clause, as in the Hebrew. In a poetic passage like this, replacing ‘toil’ with ‘much labor’ seems a step backward.
18. And thorns and thistles. Hebrew, wᵉ-qoṣ wᵉ-dardar, at the front of its clause.
18. sprout. Hebrew ṣmḥ, a verb specifically about plant growth.
19. In the sweat of your face. At the head of its clause, as in the Hebrew.
19. for out of it. Following the word order of the Hebrew.
19. for dust. Like for out of it.
19. and to dust. Ditto.
20. called his wife’s name. Literally as in the Hebrew.
20. was the mother. This and “would be the mother” come to much the same thing, with the perhaps subtle distinction that the ASV’s tenses implicitly take the point of view of the narrator and/or reader, while the WEB takes the point of view, in a way, of the first human. Given the hayta here is a qatal verb, I tentatively prefer the ASV’s approach here.
21. tunics. Hebrew kotnot. See DCH, HALOT.
21. animal skins. Just one word in the Hebrew: ʿor. But somehow leaving it just ‘skins’ seems awkward in the English.
21. for the man. The Masoretic Text here reads, as pointed lᵉ-ʾadam, “to Adam”. I am translating on the assumption that the consonantal text should be repointed to read la-ʾadam. See the note on 2:20 for the extended reasoning behind this emendation, which is supported by BHK and BHS.
22. like. Especially where the Hebrew prefix k- appears, the ASV will sometimes use ‘as’ instead of ‘like’. When appropriate, I freely modify this to ‘like’, and will not necessarily not every instance. This issue is filed in the appendix “Recurring Words” under the entry LIKE.
22. knowing. This is simply more natural English than ‘to know’.
22. forever. This is the same in meaning as the ASV’s for ever. Where there is a simple difference of spelling, this translation will side with current accepted American usage, and not note every instance where this occurs. This issue is filed under Spelling in the appendix “Recurring Issues”.
23. out. Often, ‘out’ is a more suitable translation where ASV reads the somewhat dated ‘forth’. I will not note every instance of this sort of substitution. This issue is filed under FORTH in the appendix “Recurring Words”.
23. the flame of a sword. This is closer to exactly what the Hebrew says. Perhaps one might argue that the flame of a sword was an idiomatic way of saying a flaming sword, but the exact meaning of the phrase has been disputed. One interpretation is that ‘Flame’ is here the name of a minor deity who holds a sword (see DDD2, “Flame”).
24. guard. This term more explicitly describes what the cherubim and flame are up to.
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