13 August 2022 draft-bible
4. they bore children to them. As literally in the Hebrew.
5. his heart. As in the Hebrew. WEB specifies man’s heart, perhaps out a desire to prevent people from thinking that his refers to Yahweh’s heart. But that would be a strong misreading of the passage anyhow.
6. Yahweh was sorry. Clearer than ASV’s it repented Yahweh.
6. in his heart. A bit more natural than at his heart.
7. from … to … to. So it says literally in the Hebrew, and in this case the usage works just fine in English.
9. these are the generations. See the note on 2:4.
9. among the people of his time. Hebrew bᵉdorotav. This could as in the ASV be translated ‘generations’, but this raises another problem: this second word for ‘generations’ (dor) is different from the first ‘generations’ of the verse (tolᵉdot). The first instance is already problematic enough; no need to compound the problem by associating the less difficult dor with it.
12. and behold. Hebrew wᵉ__hinneh. The ASV’s “saw the earth, and behold” is indeed dated. But the WEB’s “saw the earth, and saw” is redundant. Here I think we should be true to the WEB’s more usual practice and simply retain "behold". For more on this word, see the entry BEHOLD in the appendix “Recurring words”.
13. The end of all flesh has come before me. Even if this expression does in effect mean “I will bring an end to all flesh”, as the WEB has it, the Hebrew phrase is deliberately indirect.
13. I will destroy them and the earth. If the WEB’s reading were correct, we might at first glance expect the Hebrew text to read mašḥitam wᵉʾet ha-areṣ, but instead the text reads mašḥitam ʾet ha-areṣ. One option, which according to BHK1913 is supported by the Septuagint, is to imagine that wᵉʾet is in fact the original reading and that a wᵉ- has simply fallen out of the text by mistake. So perhaps the WEB is translated on the assumption that the Septuagint has it right.
The ASV’s reading attempts to preserve the Masoretic Text here, and reads ʾet not in its more common sense as a direct object marker (which would produce the awkward ‘destroy them the earth’) but in its less common use as an equivalent of the English with. Thus, “I will destroy them with the earth.”
Other suggestions have also been made. As BHK1913 relates, the Samaritan Targum replaces ʾet with min, thus yielding the reading “I will destroy them from the earth.” This is what BHK recommends: either reading min like the Samaritan Targum, or meʿal, yielding the reading “I will destroy them from upon the earth”, which is more or less the same thing. Another proposal: instead of reading hinᵉni mašḥitam ʾet ha-areṣ (‘behold, I will destroy them with [?] the earth’), instead read hinnam mašḥitim ʾet ha-areṣ (‘behold, they are destroying the earth’).
14. Make thee (ASV). Where the ASV reads Make thee, it looks like the WEB may be mistaking this for Make thou. If the ASV had read Make thou, then the contemporary English equivalent would just be the word ‘Make’. But thee is objective, that is, Make thee means Make yourself.
14. an ark. Hebrew tebah. While this particular tebah is in fact a ship, it doesn’t follow that the Hebrew word itself means ‘ship’. The only other tebah in the Hebrew Bible is a small basket or container into which the infant Moses was placed in Exodus 2. See the entry ARK in the appendix “Recurring Words”.
14. seal. Hebrew kafar. ‘Seal’ has the advantage of being much more readable than ‘pitch’ (as a verb). But a disadvantage to the WEB’s reading here is that the ASV’s pitch (verb) … pitch (noun) helps preserve the Hebrew text’s repetitive kafar … kofer.
14. inside and outside. An up to date rewrite of “within and without”.
15. width. Somewhat more readable than breadth, and amounting to the same thing in this context.
16. roof. Hebrew ṣohar, a term which appears only here. There is not enough information to definitively say what the term must mean. One reading is that it refers to a sloped roof – in this case, ‘finish it to a cubit upward’ refers to the roof at the centerline of the ark being a cubit taller than the roof at the sides of the ark. A gentle slope of this kind would allow water to slide off the ark, and avoid it collecting on top of it. Alternately, the word may mean ‘light’ or ‘opening for light’, and thus refer to some kind of window.
16. for the ark. Hebrew la-tebah.
17. I, behold, I. This is a bit of a clumsy and dated phrase, but to replace a clumsy and dated behold with a clumsy and dated even does not seem to be a step forward. Better to leave it as it was. The trouble with behold, which generally represents the Hebrew hen or hinneh, is that it is a discourse marker, a word which draws attention in a particular way but which does not directly change the basic meaning of a sentence it appears in. Here the NHEB’s “And as for me” seems to be an appropriate translation.
17. I am about to bring. The Hebrew term is a participle. If I understand it correctly, its presence in this context underscores the immediacy of what is about to happen.
17. the flood of waters (ASV, WEB). This would be a straightforward translation if the underlying Hebrew expression were mabbul ha-mayim, “the flood of waters”. But the expression is in fact ha-mabbul mayim, which is “the flood” followed by “waters”. The effect is almost as if the text had originally simply read ha-mabbul, ‘the flood’, and then as if someone added, perhaps as an explanatory note ‘water’. Why would someone add such a thing? Perhaps if the term mabbul, ‘flood’, were obscure at some point in the history of textual transmission, someone might have felt the need to add an explanation for it. Consider that outside of Genesis, where it always refers to the flood of Noah, the only appearance of the term is in Psalm 29:10. Were it not for the Genesis flood story – with its copious description of what the mabbul entailed, I’m not sure we’d even know what the Hebrew term means. So it could make sense that someone felt the need to define it in 6:17, that is, in the first passage where Genesis introduces the term. Notice also that in this verse, upon the very first introduction of the term, God does not say, “I am about to bring a flood”, but instead “the flood”, as if ha-mabbul were almost a proper name for the particular event in Noah’s time (cf. BDB, מבול).
Another possibility has also been proposed (see BHK1913). Instead of reading mayim (‘waters’) one could emend the vowels and read miyam, in which case this verse would read: “And as for me, I am about to bring the flood from the sea upon the earth.” An objection might be raised that, as the flood in the rest of the story is attributed to water from the sky and underground reservoirs, it would be out of place for this verse to paint a different scenario, as if the flood were something more akin to a tsunami. But many things seem out of place in the flood story, which is sometimes held up as nearly a textbook example of a composite text in studies of the documentary theory.
20. of each kind. As in 1:11.
21. take thou unto thee (ASV). Hebrew qaḥ-lᵉka, which means “take for yourself” or “take with you”. Without completely ruling out the WEB’s choice, I lean toward lᵉka here meaning ‘for yourself’, given the expression lᵉka wᵉ-lahem later in the same verse, which must mean “for yourself and for them”. Compare this to ʾeleika, which also is used in this verse, where it does mean something physical and akin to unto thee.
21. some of all. The word "some" simply must be supplied here; today’s English simply cannot tolerate “take for yourself of all”.
22. everything. The expression "according to all" seems a bit dated.
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