Recurring words

...

12 August 2022 - 21 October 2022 Navigate to draft-bible.

In the process of comparing the ASV and WEB, and trying to make a revision which combines the best features of both, certain words come up over and over. For example, the word ‘thereof’ appears regularly in the ASV, and the WEB (rightfully) replaces it with modern equivalents like ‘its’ or ‘of it’ depending on the context. Rather than putting a note in the commentary for every single instance of this happening, I simply note the first time in Genesis this occurs, and then put an entry for thereof in this appendix. Similar situations occur involving the words face, forth, hearken, lest, shall, slay, unto, and upon. For these cases and others, this appendix preserves a list of words which come up repeatedly and consequently do not need to be addressed over and over.

It is my intention, between the list of words in this appendix, the issues raised in the other appendix “Recurring Issues”, and then the notes on individual passages, to in the end cover every single difference between the ASV, WEB, and my own revision.

ACCORDING TO. There is a certain outdated use of the term "according to" which often appears in the ASV, especially in phrases where the Hebrew prefix k- appears. I will sometimes rearrange phrases in which "according to" appears in the ASV and WEB.

ARK. The Hebrew word tebah refers to two objects which appear in the Hebrew Bible. Both consist of containers smeared with a water-proofing material which carry a human cargo in order to save that cargo from drowning. The more famous of these is Noah’s ark, while the other was a much smaller vessel into which the baby Moses was placed. The little box into which Noah was placed could hardly be described as a ‘ship’, so although Noah’s ark was a ship, it does not follow that the word tebah simply means ‘ship’. Accordingly, I have not followed the WEB in reading ‘ship’ throughout the flood narrative.

The other Hebrew word translated as ‘ark’ is aron, which refers to the chest or box in which some memorabilia related to the Exodus were kept.

BEGET. Where the Hebrew verb yld appears, the KJV and ASV tend to render it by the English word beget. As beget is no longer used very often, some translations resort to longer expressions, like “become the father of”. While perhaps beget is no longer quite ideal, still it is widely understood and there doesn’t seem to be a single word that functions as a good substitute.

BEHOLD. The ASV often uses behold or lo to translate the Hebrew discourse marker hinneh and related forms. I am not quite convinced that behold has outlived its usefulness entirely, although I will generally try to get rid of the form lo, changing it at the very least to behold. Because the essential role of the word behold is to draw attention to some part of a statement, the same function can sometimes be approximated by other means. So, for example, in Genesis 9:9, the ASV reads, “And I, behold, I establish my covenant”. In this case, I think the entire phrase wa-ani hinᵉni can be approximated by reading, “And as for me, I establish my covenant”. I will at times take these sorts of methods for translating hinneh, but in other cases will simply leave ‘behold’ in place.

The above discussion does not applies to cases where it is a discourse marker like hinneh that is producing the ‘behold’, not in cases where ‘behold’ is being used as a simple verb. In those cases, as in Genesis 12:14 (“the Egyptians beheld the woman”), the issue is much simpler. In these cases, one can simply substitute the word ‘see’ (e.g. “the Egyptians saw the woman”).

CATTLE. The ASV frequently uses ‘cattle’ for the Hebrew behemah, as, for example, in Genesis 7:23. In this case, the WEB reads ‘livestock’. While the English word ‘cattle’ used to have a broader set of meanings that it carries for many speakers today (sheep and goats were once referred to as ‘small cattle’), today many readers who see cattle will think ‘bovines’, a group considerably narrower than the wide range of creatures covered by behemah. Similar considerations apply (as in Genesis 4:21) when the Hebrew word in question is miqneh or even mᵉlakah.

CHALDEANS. The people known in Hebrew as kasdim are often referred to as ‘Chaldees’ in the ASV. The term commonly used today is ‘Chaldeans’, which this translation will follow.

COMMUNE. At times the ASV reads "commune" for the Hebrew verb dbr, which is a simple verb for speaking. I follow the WEB in translating it with terms like "speak" or "talk".

CREEP. The ASV at times uses creep, creepeth, creeping, to translate words related to the root rms / rmś. These words likely refer to the small animals that move quickly along the ground or in swarms, and although I don’t know of a perfect English equivalent for this family of words, I do think it’s safe to say that ‘crawl’, ‘crawling’, etc. will be better equivalents in today’s English than words related to ‘creep’, which has overtones of malevolence and slowness that don’t seem to be intended by the Hebrew terms.

FACE. Where the Hebrew panim (or pnei) is rendered “face” in the ASV, WEB may substitute ‘surface’. As ‘face’ more nearly covers the semantic range of panim than surface does, my general impulse is to retain ‘face’.

FORTH. Though ‘forth’ has not completely disappeared from English, it shows up now less often than it used to. Often, it is easily replaced with ‘out’. And, as it happens, in Genesis 11:31 and 12:5, for example, the English expression ‘went forth’ (ASV) is used for the Hebrew verb yaṣaʾ, ‘to go out’. If one were to modernize the language, then, it would be reasonable to replace ‘went forth’ with ‘went out’. However, in both verses the WEB simply deletes the word ‘forth’, and just translates yaṣaʾ, which means ‘went out’ as simply ‘went’. This does not in either case drastically ruin the verse, but one can do better.

GOD. Where the Hebrew reads ʾelohim, there is a tendency in English to capitalize the word whenever it refers to Yahweh, and leave it lowercase where it does not. Or, to put it another way, the word “God” is used of the monotheistic deity, while “god” is used for the deities of polytheism.

Suppose, scratched into a clay shard, some archaeologist were to dig up an inscription which reads: yhw ʾlhy yśrʾl wdgn ʾlhy plštm. After a little puzzling over it, the meaning would be clear: Israel’s deity is Yahweh, and the Philistines’ deity is Dagon. If someone were to ‘translate’ this phrase using the principles usually employed in English Bibles, the inscription would read: “Yahweh is the God of Israel, and Dagon is the god of the Philistines.”

This, however, would not just be a translation, but also a commentary on the relative statuses of Yahweh and Dagon. It would be as though our ‘translator’ had ‘translated’ the shard of pottery as “Yahweh is the True Monotheistic God of Israel, and Dagon is the false inferior polytheistic god of the Philistines.” Now, it may well be the case that the author of the shard did in fact harbor the opinion that Yahweh was far superior to Dagon. Or perhaps things are the other way around, and the shard was found in Gath.

In any case, a good translation avoids putting things into the text that simply aren’t there. In a language like Hebrew, which uses the same common noun ʾelohim to refer both to Yahweh and other deities, a faithful translation demands that we not engage in these sorts of theological games. An author, of course, is free to write “god” or “God” or even “The Great and True God” as she wishes, but a translator does not have this sort of freedom.

As far as I can tell, the only workable alternative is to translate elohim as a common noun whenever it is a common noun in Hebrew, and as a proper noun wherever it is a proper noun in Hebrew. Thus, in Genesis 1:3, we should read, “And God said, Let there be light”. But in Genesis 9;26, we should read “Blessed be Yahweh, the god of Shem.” This may be jarring to the reader, but better to be jarring than to inaccurate.

HILL, HILL COUNTRY. See MOUNT, MOUNTAIN.

IT CAME TO PASS. In the KJV and ASV, the expression ‘And it came to pass’ frequently occurs where Hebrew has wayᵉhi. It serves as a discourse marker, breaking up the usual progression of verbs in a narrative for one reason or another. I do not have any one single way of representing wayᵉhi in English, but will simply make a case by case choice as each situation suggests. Everything said here likewise applies, mutatis mutandis, to the expression ‘it shall come to pass’ and the Hebrew wᵉhaya.

LAD. I’ve taken a liking to Robert Alter’s suggestion that naʿar be translated as ‘lad’. The word can have two meanings: either it refers to a man as young, or it refers to a man as being a subordinate (Genesis, 1996, xxviii.).

LEST. Sometimes, where the ASV reads ‘lest’, the WEB rephrases to read something like ‘so that … not’. I intend to generally follow the WEB on this. Sometimes, though, ‘lest’ saves a lot of wordiness and may be worth keeping.

MOUNT, MOUNTAIN. The Hebrew har is often translated as "mountain", and in many cases this is adequate. However, the English word "mountain" tends to suggest a very specific raised area with a single peak, while the Hebrew har can refer a bit more broadly to elevated areas in general, and so sometimes "hill" or "hill country" is an appropriate reading. This will be decided on a case by case basis.

SAME. At times, the archaic language of the ASV will use the word ‘same’ in a particular way that is no longer done. For example, in Genesis 5:29, Lamech says, “This same shall comfort us”, meaning “This one shall comfort us.” I will make it a general policy to remove out-dated instances of ‘same’.

SEED. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, and indeed in the New Testament as well, the concept of ‘seed’ is a recurring theme. In addition to referring to the seeds of plants (e.g. Genesis 1:11), it can also refer to semen (Genesis 38:9), children (Genesis 21:13), or more distant descendants (Genesis 24:60). The Hebrew term appears over 200 times in the Hebrew Bible, and Robert Alter argues that it is best to read ‘seed’ rather than to substitute words like ‘children’, ‘offspring’, ‘lineage’, and so on. Given the importance of the concept of ‘seed’ to the biblical writers, this is simply one of those things that we should expect a competent biblical reader to learn to understand without paraphrases. I have been persuaded to follow Alter on this issue (see Robert Alter, Genesis [1996] pp. 12-13).

SHALL. It is sometimes suggeted that there are systematic rules determining when one should use ‘shall’, as opposed to ‘will’. This is not a thing I want to devote much time too: ‘will’ is nice because it is so contemporary; ‘shall’ is a bit dated but not difficult to understand. I’m generally perfectly happy with either, so in the interests of efficiency will just use whichever is found in the WEB unless I feel a strong urge in the opposite direction. One major exception to this is in poetry, where ‘shall’ is a cheap and easy way of invoking the somewhat dated tone of biblical poetry.

SHEEP. There is a Hebrew word ṣʾon, which can refer to sheep and to goats. A perfect literal equivalent would be ‘ovicaprids’ or ‘caprovines’, but unfortunately either word is almost entirely unknown to most English-speakers. Both words are, in fact, so rare that neither can be found at dictionary.com (as of June 4th, 2022). To translate the expression by a whole phrase might also introduce some awkwardness – we might read in Genesis 4:2, for example, that Abel became ‘a keeper of sheep and/or goats’. Often, the WEB and ASV simply translate the word as ‘sheep’, and while this is not quite satisfactory, I’m not sure what a better approach would be, so for now I intend to leave the ASV/WEB wording as is when ṣʾon is translated as ‘sheep’.

SKY. For the Hebrew šamayim, all other things being equal ‘sky’ is a more direct equivalent than the often ambiguous ‘heaven’. I will often read ‘sky’ where ASV reads ‘heaven’ or ‘heavens’ for this reason.

SLAVE. The Hebrew terms ʿebed, šifḥah, and ʾamah are often used to describe persons who were reduced to the status of property, who could be beaten with impunity, sexually exploited, and sold or cast out of the household at will. The word ‘slavery’ describes this arrangement, and so these nouns, when they refer to persons living under that institution, will generally be translated ‘slaves’. The ASV frequently uses, and the WEB retains, euphemisms such as ‘servant’, ‘maid’, or ‘handmaid’ to describe these people. It seems better to to me to be more direct. There is a linguistic trend, in some writing today, toward referring to enslaved persons as ‘enslaved people’ rather than ‘slaves’, out of a regard for their dignity. While I am not opposed to this kind of language in general – it may be a good thing insofar as it communicates respect for marginalized people – these sorts of statements would not be at home in the biblical text itself. When Sarah urges her husband to ‘Cast out this slave and her son’, one would be watering down Sarah’s contempt if one were to use a circumlocution, and have Sarah say something like, ‘Cast out this enslaved woman’. Some might object that there is something ugly about the term ‘slave’, and this is certainly true, but where a text deals with ugly terms, we will not censor it.

SLAY. For the dated slay, the word “kill” is often a good alternative. It is possible that in some instances, such as in poetry, there might be a case for retaining slay.

SMITE. For the dated smite, the word “strike”, or the phrase “strike down” is often a good alternative. It is possible that in some instances, such as poetry, there might be a case for retaining smite.

SOJOURN. The Hebrew verb lagur has no perfect equivalent in contemporary English -- it means to live in an area where one is not a native, in a status roughly analogous to what we might in English call a "resident alien". The somewhat dated English word "sojourn", as the term is sometimes translated in the KJV, is perhaps the best single-word equivalent. Along the same lines, the Hebrew noun ger refers to a "sojourner" or "resident alien".

SOUL. The Hebrew nefeš is not the perfect equivalent of any English word, but is often rendered as "soul" in the ASV and WEB. The usage of the term, however, is often closer to the way English uses the term "person" or "being" than to the concept of a soul as found in popular culture. This translation will often, but not always, move away from the practice of automatically translating nefeš as "soul".

UPON. The WEB tends to systematically remove the word ‘upon’ from the ASV. See, for example, Genesis 1:2, 11, 15, 17, and 25. In many cases, there is nothing particularly difficult or puzzling about the word ‘upon’, although I suppose someone determined to remove formality from the Bible might see it as a problem. I am not someone determined to make the Bible informal, and as a general rule my tendency is to retain upon except in cases where there is some special reason that it is unsuitable.

WORD. The Hebrew word dabar has a range of meanings, and often refers to something someone says (or writes, as the case may be). The Ten Commandments, for example, are in Hebrew refers to as ten dᵉbarim -- ten things [God] said. A message from Yahweh is often referred to a dᵉbar YHWH, and the word dabar can also refer to matters or happenings in general. It is not always easy to translate, and there is no single English word that perfectly equates to dabar. The Hebrew term does not mean 'word', at least not in the most basic sense, in which 'ankle' and 'rattlesnake' are words. It can, however, be used in a matter roughly equivalent to 'word' in the expression "to have a word with someone". So, while it may at times make sense to translate dabar as "word", I will feel free to use a great deal of flexibility in renderings expressions that contain dabar.

YAHWEH. Where the tetragrammaton appears, this translation will follow the widespread scholarly practice of vocalizing it as ‘Yahweh’ (as in the WEB), rather than employing the archaic and misleading spelling ‘Jehovah’ which is characteristic of the ASV.