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Preface Introduction ChaptersChapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 AppendicesAppendix I Appendix II Appendix III Appendix IV Appendix V Appendix VI Appendix VII Appendix VIII Appendix IX Appendix X Appendix XI Appendix XII Appendix XIII Appendix XIV Appendix XV Appendix XVI Appendix XVII Appendix XVIII Appendix XIX Appendix XX Appendix XXI IndexesReferences Names Biblical References General Bibliography |
THE LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE. "But the earth had become a
desolation...." The rendering above departs from that to be observed in almost all the better known
English translations in three ways:* the use of a disjunctive (but for
and), the use of the pluperfect in the place of the simple perfect, and the use
of became in place of the simple was. Of the disjunctive, little
need be said. The Hebrew stands for both the
conjunctive and the disjunctive particles, and the context alone can determine
which is the more appropriate. There is, as we have seen, some reason to prefer the disjunctive in view of the indicated pause in
the Hebrew text at the end of verse 1. In Appendix XIV will be found a
number of illustrations of this use, in- cluding some instances in
which the correctness of the disjunctive form is borne out not
merely by the obvious sense of the passage quoted but by its
reappearance as a quotation in the New Testament where the Greek has
"but", not "and" (ie., The use of the pluperfect is dealt with in the following chapter, the point being reserved for discussion only after the translation of the verb itself has been
carefully considered. The most critical issue is whether * See Appendix III. pg
1 of 19 the true significance of
the verb, and indeed of the second verse as a whole, hinges upon the settlement of this point. Granted that this point can be settled, the
other two points will probably not be ser- iously disputed. Now this discussion does
not make easy reading, not only because of the subtleties involved
(as will appear) but also because the verb we must examine in its
commoner forms happens also to be the very verb we must use in its
commoner forms in order to make the examination! One runs into this kind of
thing: "In such a case, the word was is incorrect....". Or
one might put this: "In such a case, the word "was" is incorrect...
."; or " the word WAS is incorrect"; or "the word was is
incorrect....". At any rate, this points up the nature of the problem! Thus we are forced to employ various
devices (underlinings, capitals,
italics, and 'quote' marks) in order to make each point clearer.* And this kind of constant typographical
switch- ing is most distressing to
even a thoroughly dedicated reader. But it seems unavoidable. In view of the fact that
one can scarcely construct an English sentence of any complexity
without using some form of the verb "to be", it is difficult
to realize that there are well-developed languages which make little or no
use of it at all in the simple copulative sense. When, in English, we
express the straightforward idea, "The man is good", the verb
"to be "is used merely to connect together the words man and good. Many languages, and indeed many children,
simply say, "man good",
considering the connective verb quite unnecessary. A child will say, "Me
good boy": an Indian might say, "Me brave man". Hebrew does the same. Benjamin Lee Whorf, the
'founder' of that branch of the study of language known as
Metalinguistics, observed that a Hopi Indian, for example, has difficulty in
understanding why we say, "It is raining". because to his way of
thinking the It is the rain.
One might just as well say, "Rain is
raining" - which of course is a redundancy. So he wonders why we don't
simply say, as he does, "Raining"! Neither * In the biblical quotations
which follow, we have tried to indicate to the reader
where the verb "to be" has been supplied in the English
though absent in the original by put- ting the verb in
brackets. Thus: Gen. 3.11,
"Who told thee that thou (wast)
naked?" indicates that (wast) has been supplied to complete the
English sentence.
the It
nor the Is serves any useful purpose in this English sentence and common sense,
therefore, would argue the leaving out of both of them. But this would not sound correct to
us. Yet, as we have observed, Hebrew shares
the un-English view that a verb is not needed here since it
really contributes nothing. Now, in translating, it is
quite customary to equate the Hebrew verbal form by Hebraists for many years that the
equation is not strictly valid. In English, being
is a kind of static concept, things simply "are" this or that. When we say,
"The man is tall", we are not speaking of a dynamic event but a
more or less static situation.
"The field is flat" is indeed a
static situation. In both these
sentences English requires some part of the
verb "to be" in order to satisfy our sense of linguistic
propriety. Yet in spite of the
possession of the verb necessary here and the
verb is would therefore not be represented in the Hebrew. The reader who is limited
to English will find that in some editions of the Bible, especially
in the Authorized Version, a means is prov- ided, simply by the use of
italics, to show where any part of the verb "to be" has been
inserted in the English translation to complete the sense though not found in
the original Hebrew. For example, if one opens a first edition of
the Scofield Bible at (say) page 21, some eleven copulative or
connective occurrences of the verb "to be" will be found in italics,
appearing in the text as is, art, be, and was:
and on page 395 some 39
examples will be found in the forms was and were In every instance the word
has been supplied by the translators where the Hebrew original did
not consider any verb necessary.* * Any page would, of course, have
served to illustrate the point, and any
printing of the Authorized Version will show it. Thus, for example from Jud. 6.10 to 7.14
we have in 6.10 am, 13 be, 15
am and is, 22 was 24 is, 25 is, 30 be; and in 7.1 is, 2 are and are,
3 is, 12 were, 13 was, and 14 is. All these are copulative and the original. On the other hand, in Judges 6.27 the verb was is not in italics since it is found in the Hebrew, and it is clear that the
intent of the writer was something beyond the mere copulative
force of the verb: as for example Continued
page 44. Thus the fundamental idea
behind the Hebrew verb cisely what would be copulative in English
but is a far more dynamic concept. This is indicated to some extent
by its possible etymology. A number of authorities,
including Gesenius and Tregelles, believed that the primary meaning
was that of "falling" - comparing the word with the Arabic From this came the idea of
"befalling" in the sense of "happening", and so "to fall
out", and thence "to come to be", ie., "to become". From this idea of having
become, we pass easily into the meaning "to be" in the sense
of having existence but the copulative sense usually attributed to it
seems without logical foundation. Subsequently, Tregelles
came to believe that the concept of "fall- ing" was not really primary,
and that the notion of "being" came instead from that of
"living". From the concept of "living" the idea of "being" is
readily derived so that it comes easily to mean "to be": but this kind of being is
dynamic being, living being, not the static kind of being which is
equative as when one says, "This is (ie., equals) that", but the kind
which is implied in such a sentence as "He is alone", or "He
is with thee". Thus while Benjamin Davies
gives the basic meaning as "to be" - usually with the sense of
"to exist", "to be alive", "to come into being", and so
"to become" - Brown, Driver and Briggs list the meanings of "to become"; and
"to be". And under the
last heading they add subsequently in parenthesis, "often
with the subordinate idea of becoming". The concept of dynamic as
opposed to static being is of great importance to an
understanding of the Hebrew usage of the word. Boman, in a critical study
of the verb, concludes that it is never used copulatively at all
and that all the usual illustrations of such a use provided in lexicons
are not really valid. He does not consider that even Ratschow, who
made a quite exhaustive study of Old Testa- ment usage, was really
able to give any clear unequivocal instances. Thus, for example, in Gen. 2.25 the
sentence, "and they were "And it came to be that...." In Gen. 23.17 the verb 'to be'is set in italics 5
times! We need this insertion of
the verb to fill out the
sentence, but the Hebrew writer did not see any need for it and so
omitted it entirely. ( at the moment of speaking
the writer is observing the simple fact of their nakedness but that
this was how they lived, daily. They "went about" without
clothing and without shame.
Subsequently, they suddenly became aware that
they were naked and this awareness brought with it a sense of
shame not experienced before. This
was nakedness in a new way and
it occurred quite suddenly - suddenly enough that Adam
"discovered" it with a sense of shock. That this was in the nature of a
discovery is implied in the Lord's words (in Gen, 3.11), "Who told
thee that thou (wast) naked?". The question would have been pointless
otherwise. Thus the real emphasis here is no longer upon the
circumstance that Adam and Eve had been living naked in the Garden of
Eden but that they had both suddenly discovered a fact which caused them
to be ashamed. Boman argues that the
simple "is" or "was" in an English sentence is never expressed in
Hebrew and that where it IS expressed it does not mean what the English
translation implies. It is used in the sense of eventuality: it is not
used for a simple fact or circumstance or situation. One might wonder how Hebrew would then
distinguish between the phrase, "the man is
good", and "the good man".
In a sense they convey the same basic
idea, but there is a subtle difference. In any case Hebrew can make the
distinction. The first would appear simply as "the man
good" (ha-ish tobh: as "the man the good
one"(ha-ish ha-tobh: One might then ask further, How would the
distinction be made between the sentences,
"the man is good" and "the man was good"? In Hebrew, the context is
allowed to decide the matter. While
it might seem that this would
be difficult (as upon occasion it is), the number of such occasions
must be remarkably small for there seems to be not the slightest
hesitation in omitting the verb, whether the sense of "is" or
"was" is intended. Such will be apparent from the footnote with examples on
page 43 of this Chapter and from the more elaborate study which will
be found in Appendix IV. Some have felt this to be
a real difficulty. Barr, for
example, argues that the verb must
be inserted when the tense is past and the situation no longer exists.
For example, if a writer meant to say, "The man was good....
but is no longer so", ie., "The man was once good", then he
would insert the appropriate form of the verb "to be" to indicate the
altered circumstance. But this rule does not hold. For example, according to this principle, the record of
Job's complaint in Chapter 29 should have
the verb was
in the original since the situation has clearly been altered by his diseased condition.
Yet, in point of fact, the Hebrew omits it. It is not merely
that the situation is no longer true today: the situation was no
longer true when the statement was made. Thus Job, inverses 14 and 15
and 20, tells his self-appointed comforters that he was formerly -
ie., was once - a father to the blind and feet to the lame: he once
enjoyed fame and recognition and his roots once spread beside the waters
like a flourishing tree. The meaning
of his complaint is
unmistakable. He WAS all those things but is no longer so: yet the Hebrew
writer saw no need to express the connect- ive verb "was"
in such a situation. We have another example in
the case of Pharaoh's servants in Gen. 41. Here the butler recalls (verse 12) how he
and a fellow tradesman were in prison
and how at that time a Hebrew named Joseph was also with them.
Clearly the situation had now changed for the speaker, since he
is a free man - and his fellow tradesman is dead. He refers back, therefore,
to a situation which from his point of view no longer
exists and the English translation in verse 12 properly inserts the verb
"was" - but the Hebrew omits it.
Some might argue that the
situation for Joseph had not changed, since he was still in prison! But
one must surely consider the circumstances from the point of view of
the speaker. The omission of the verb in reporting his speech
shows, therefore, that it is not required merely because there is the
implication of altered circumstance. He was, as he says, once in the
same prison: but he is no longer so, yet the Hebrew writer evidently
saw no need for the verb There are numerous
illustrations of this kind of situation in the Old Testament, but many of
these require a somewhat elaborate excursus in order to show
how we know there has been a change. Some are straightforward enough: as, for
example, where Gen. 12.6 records that "the
Canaanite (was) then (ie. , at that time) in the land". But there are probably far more examples
which are in reverse. There are innumerable examples where the
situation is quite UN-changed and yet
the verb "to be" is inserted in the original in the appropriate
form. This is a most common occurrence. Thus, for example,
throughout the first chapter of Genesis there is the recurrent phrase,
"And it was so". Here the
Hebrew inserts the verb. According to Barr, this insertion should
imply that the situation or circumstance is
no longer true. But this is surely not the case. Genesis 1,
verses 3, 5, 7, 8, 9. and so forth, would all be properly translated if
one were to render the phrase which in English reads, "And
it was so", as "it became so", but it would
surely be quite
improper to suppose that the author means, "And it was once but is no longer
so....". Thus, the insertion of the verbal form
"was" in a Hebrew sentence is not intended to signify
that the circumstance is no longer true, for these evenings and these
mornings retain their pre-eminence of position in the processes
of time. Thus when Barr proposes
that the verb is inserted in
Gen. 1.2 in order to show that the desolation was a temporary one and no
longer exists, he is implying the existence of a rule which certainly
cannot be unequivocally demonstrated from biblical usage. And to say
at the same time, as Barr does, that on this account "it would
be quite perverse to insist on the meaning 'became' here", is
clearly going beyond the evidence. Indeed, he would perhaps be forced to
admit that to follow out his own proposed rule and render Gen. 1.5,
"and the evening and the morning were once a second day but are
no longer so", would indeed be absurdly perverse! But, by contrast
to this absurd rendering, it would make very good sense to
render the Hebrew, "and the evening and the morning became the second
day", for this is precisely the truth of the matter, and the Hebrew
has seen fit to insert the verb in order (as I believe) to make
this quite clear. In this eventful
period, it did become the second day
of the week. From all of this it would appear
that the decisive factor which determines whether the verb will be
inserted or omitted is not related to tense. Nor is it related to circumstance, if by
this is meant merely that what is
reported is no longer the case. Boman seems to come much closer to the
truth when he underscores the fact that |
(waw)
rather
than 
should here
be rendered "was" or "became" since
with its
supposed sense of "being", Hebrew would not think it
is omitted
in
is not pre-
meaning
"to be headlong" or '"to fall down".
in the
following order: "to fall"; "to come to pass";
)
both naked and were not ashamed", means not so much that
), and the second,
).
in this context.