Here are my comments, findings, and observations for this week:
45:9 The first half of this verse seems to lack parallelism, or at least I don't understand its parallelism: הוי רב את-יצרו חרש את-חרשי אדמה. I want to understand חרש את-חרשי אדמה as "the potsherd [which attacks] the potsherds of earth." It seems as though חרשי should be pointed so as to mean "craftspeople of" rather than "potsherds of." What were the Masoretes thinking?
45:11 I'm a little confused about what to do with האתיות שאלוני על-בני (at the beginning of the second half of the verse). The first participle ("those who come") is feminine, but the imperative verb and "my sons" are both masculine. I'm not even sure how to begin! Perhaps one could understand this as "ask me [concerning] those (women) who come [forth] and concerning my sons." Can anyone help?
45:12 The second half of this verse has what seems to me to be a peculiar order for Hebrew: אני ידי נטו שמים וכל-צבאם צויתי. The thought begins with אני ("I"; compare the beginning of verse 12) but fails to make use of this pronoun until the "I have commanded" (צויתי) at the end of the verse. Is the intervening material, then, parenthetical? This would be the result of this arrangement: "I (my hands have spread out the heavens and all their heavenly bodies) have commanded!" Or "I (my hands have spread out the heavens) have even commanded the heavenly bodies."
45:13 (1) I notice that the NRSV inserts Cyrus into this verse, although the name does not occur in the Hebrew. This may certainly be appropriate to insert the name (from verse 1), but I just thought I would note this. (2) The "exiles" are also mentioned in this verse. Do we need to modify our understand of the "exiles" as the result of Middlemas's broader interpretation? Or is it appropriate to keep the translation "eciles" here?
45:14 (1) Does עליך יעברו in the first half of this verse mean something like "they will pass over you?" How does it fit in with the rest of the sentence? (2) At the end of the first half of the verse, what does it mean for these peoples/nations to בזקים יעברו? Are they headed somewhere else? Or do they belong to Israel? (3) ישתחוו ("they will bow down"): is it a Hishtaphel of חוה or a Hithpael of שחה? HELP! GRAMMATICAL AMBIGUITY! :) (4) Again, the no other gods concept arises.
45:15 Why does God keep hidden? Contrast verse 19, where YHWH seems to suggest that he did not speak in secret. Is there another dialog going on here?
45:17 עד-עולמי עד: what an odd phrase this is that ends this verse! Does this begin to approach the philosophical concept of eternity? (My guess is, probably not.)
45:18 This verse sounds very familiar! These are familiar epithets that we had in earlier focus texts. Is Amy getting soft on us by giving us a verse to translate that we have already had instead of a verse full of hapax legomena? :) (I'm only kidding, Amy! I have felt plenty challenged by the Hebrew!)
45:19 תהו: The NRSV suggests "chaos" (perhaps in contrast to "order" at the end of the verse), while Koehler and Baumgartner suggest something along the lines of "useless, futile." Literally, I think, the word refers to wilderness. Does this relate to the wanderings in Exodus at all?
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Hi Justin,
ReplyDeleteLooking at the you're noted the insertion of Cyrus's name in the NRSV. Is that a common practice in translations to do things like that? It slightly shakes up my view of Cyrus in the passage. I'm really intrigued as well.
I'm also intrigued by the thoughts of another conversation around 15. Is that a sign of a redactor at work? Again, since I have no Hebrew skills, I'm intrigued by this.
Thanks for your comments this week. The work on translation wants me to take Hebrew while I'm here at Iliff. But alas, my electives are somewhat up in the air depending if I get in the Social Work program at DU. We'll have to see how it plays out.
Take care and see you Wednesday!
Travis K.W.
Hi Justin,
ReplyDeleteGreat observations and I had many of the same questions as you did from the Hebrew so am anxious to talk about them in class. I took the word in verse 45:14 (bow down) as the hithpael, but I think you could make a case for the other, too. I think you are right to wonder whether there is another dialogue going on with the assertion in v. 15 that YHWH is hidden, and the later contrast that is presented in v. 19. Your suggestion for the word in v. 19 as referring to wilderness, as opposed to how it is often translated (as the NRSV) as chaos, or more often formless or void, is correct. The translation I like is "waste-place." But I think the translation "emptiness" could also go well with the darkness that is described earlier in the verse.
Justin,
ReplyDeleteLike Travis, I'm surprised (and a little unsettled) that the NRSV inserted Cyrus' name into v. 13. I wonder if this shows up in most translations...I'll have to take a look at that. Thanks for pointing it out.
I'd like to hear a little more about your observations in v. 19. You say: The NRSV suggests "chaos" (perhaps in contrast to "order" at the end of the verse), while Koehler and Baumgartner suggest something along the lines of "useless, futile." Literally, I think, the word refers to wilderness. Does this relate to the wanderings in Exodus at all?
So Koehler and Baumgartner would translate "Seek me in chaos" as "Seek me in futility"??? Are you saying that the literal translation is wilderness? That makes a lot of sense to me, in the context of speaking to the offspring of Jacob. I do remember noticing that the words "set my exiles free" in v. 13 made me think so strongly of the Exodus but there wasn't a lot else in this pericope that did. If v. 19 alluded to wilderness, that would make things a little more interesting.
On the other hand, "chaos" might flow better from the previous verse. Hmmm...
Katie
I think the hidden/not speak in secret dichotomy you mention is the most puzzling and thus the most interesting of this section. As I asked on my post, what does it mean that God is hidden and how is this different than speaking in secret. Perhaps hidden refers to the fact that YHWH has seemed to have disappeared since Israel's defeat to Babylonia. BTW, Blenkinsopp I believe uses "void" in lieu of "chaos" and my Tanakh has "wasteland." "Void" seems strange. Would people of that time even have a concept of "void" as we think of it today?
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