Ad Fontes

Mitchell

Ye shall spoil the Egyptians?

Question: In Exodus chapter 3 What does borrowing from one’s neighbor have to do with spoiling or plundering of the Egyptians?

But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians (Exodus 3:22).

KJV (public domain in the U.S.A)

The KJV curiously translates וְשָׁאֲלָ֨ה אִשָּׁ֤ה as ” but every woman shall borrow” yet the verb שׁאל means to ask or to make a request of someone and in this case of ‘her neighbor’. I suppose “borrow” and “ask are close enough if the KJV is producing a ‘dynamic equivalent’ translation and that may very well be the case if the KJV is actually presenting an original translation. But, now who is this “neighbor”? From the context, it seems that this neighbor is not another Hebrew, but is rather the Egyptians who appear immediately before in this pericope in verse 21 who are by providence now favorably disposed toward the Hebrews. This makes it highly unlikely or at least odd that Hebrew women are now plundering the particular Egyptians who are willingly helping them. And, interestingly נָצַל (natzal) the lexeme that KJV translates here as ‘spoil’ elsewhere means to deliver or to save( for example see Exodus 6:6, 18:4, 18:8, Numbers 35:25, Joshua 2:13, 9:26, and 24:19). Concerning the meaning of נָצַל Dr. J. H. Hertz comments that:

its direct object is never the person or the thing from whom the saving or the rescuing or snatching has taken place, but always the person or thing being rescued… “ye shall spoil the Egyptians,” is, therefore, unwarranted, for two reasons. it takes the persons from whom things are snatched as the direct object; and furthermore, it necessitates an entire reversal of the meaning נָצַל from save into despoil!

Hertz, J.H., 2nd ed.The Pentateuch and Haftorahs. London: Soncino press, 1981

Okay, so why did the KJV translators render Exodus 3:22 the way they did? Was it an original translation or was it something else? Since the KJV was hardly the first English translation available a number of other translations had already started a tradition. In 1384 John Wycliffe’s translation read “nakid” amd later number of Bible translations like Matthew Bible (1537), The Great Bible (1539), The Bishops Bible (1568) agree at the following reading “and shall robbe the Egyptians”. At first sight, this might appear to be where the KJV is getting its translation from however if you check the coverdale bible 1535, Geneva Bible of 1560, Douay Rheims Bible (1582) you will find that it reads thus:

“and shall spoyle the Egyptians/Egypt.” which is the same as the modernized spelling KJV (1611) ‘s ‘spoil’ .

So, back to the question In Exodus chapter 3 What does borrowing from one’s neighbor have to do with spoiling or plundering of the Egyptians?

Answer: nothing at all, the KJV mistranslation is borrowed from older English Bible translations most notably the Coverdale translation of the OT that was based much more on the latin Vulgate and German translations than on the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible.

Exodus 24:10 (saw or feared)?

This week’s question: Does וראו in Exodus 24:10 mean ‘saw’ or ‘feared’?

It is basically accepted that the original Hebrew text of the Torah/Pentateuch was written only in consonants. Vowels and cantillation were supplied orally by the experienced reader. Early texts such as those found in the dead sea scrolls are absent of any diacriticals, cantillation/accent marks, and vowels. Even today Sefer Torah (Torah Scrolls) used in Synaguoge are written without vowel marks and cantillation marks as is the vast majority of modern Hebrew literature. So, if we assume that the original text of Exodus 24:10 was written without vowel points and cantillation marks both ‘saw’ and ‘feared’ become possible readings. Why are such different readings possible? Because Hebrew is or can be very flexable in ways that English is or can not. The א in ויראו can come with any number of accent marks none of wich actually change the meaning. The string ויראו can mean ‘and they feared’ but that has nothing to do with the accents check out the following:

ויראו with a Munach:
Gen 37:4 ( וַיִּרְא֣וּ ), Exodus 16:15 ( וַיִּרְא֣וּ ), Joshua 4:14 ( וַיִּֽרְא֣וּ /fear), Judges 18:7 ( וַיִּרְא֣וּ ), 1 Samuel 31:17 (וַיִּרְא֣וּ), and Psalm 86:17( וְיִרְא֣וּ )

ויראו with a zaqef gadol :
Exodus ( וַיִּרְא֕וּ ) and Jugdges 3:24 ( וַיִּרְא֕וּ)

ויראו With the meaning to fear:
Deuteromy 7:13, 19:20, 21:21, 28:10, 31:12, Joshua 4:4, and 1 Samuel 4:7

However, as mentioned before both accents and vowels are absent in Torah scrolls, On the other hand, all the Masoretic diacriticals are present in Masoretic codices containing books of the Hebrew Bible and in printed editions of the Hebrew Bible/Tanakh. And, the Masoretic scribes, preserve the reading וַיִּרְא֕וּ (and they saw) at Exodus 24:10 in all manuscripts as well as printed editions of the Hebrew Bible. But either reading and both readings at the same time are possible if, of course, you are reading the Hebrew text.

For more interesting opinions of ideological nature on this verse check out: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/under-gods-feet/

POSTSCRIPT (2022/08/05) 18:30 JST: I just ran across a prolific blogger (and Accordance Bible Software user) Abram J-K over at the Words on the Word blog who also just happens to have covered a very similar issue last year in another book and passage of the Hebrew Bible/OT. I have linked the pertinent post below:

https://abramkj.com/2021/12/15/fear-no-evil-or-see-no-evil-one-way-to-preach-a-textual-variant/

Quote of the day

חפשו בתורה היטב ואל תסתמכו על דברי

“Search in the Torah carefully and do not rely on my words”

this quote is often attributed to Anan ben David one of the major founders of what would later become known as Karaism. However, as this line of thought is very much parallel to the concept of Ad Fontes: Back to the Sources (למקורות), I thought it was worth posting here. 













It’s in Pausal Form









Numbers 9:23 (they kept/obeyed)





שָׁמָ֔רוּ (they kept/obeyed) in numbers 9:23 is grammatical in pausal form and, this particular morphological form of the lexeme only appears six times in the Tanakh/Hebrew Bible. If you have access to software with a database of the Hebrew Bible you may be able to run vowel point and accent mark sensitive searches to find all six occurrences of  שָׁמָ֔רוּ. 





However, did you know that before software was available it was possible to local all six occurrences if you had access to the Masorah or an edition of the Hebrew Bible with the Masorah. What is the Masorah? The Masorah is a very broad ancient corpus of notes concerning various textual and scribal matters of the Hebrew Bible. Some of these notes were written in the margins of Hebrew manuscripts, as notes were written on the top of pages, and much longer notes were often written in the back of the codices of the Hebrew Bible. According to Page Kellly the purpose of the Masorah …





was to safeguard the sacred text from any additions or deletions. The Mp notes function within that larger purpose by providing the reader or copyist instant information in the margin about how a given text feature ought to appear. If the text was found to be contrary to its Mp notes, the circumstances needed investigation in order to ascertain whether an error had occurred. Without Mp notes, errors would not so readily be brought to the attention of the reader or copyist. Although the rubrics marked by Mp notes often appear trivial to the uninitiated, there is actually a fundamental principle at work behind the text features that are annotated. Mp notes mark features in the text where an error could easily be made. Many Mp notes, for example, pertain to vowel letters, which are sometimes present (plene) and sometimes absent (defective), yielding different spellings for the same word. In such cases, the Mp marks the traditional spelling so that a letter will not be accidentally inserted or deleted where it might not be noticed otherwise.
Kelley, Page H., Daniel S. Mynatt, and Timothy G. Crawford. The Masorah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: Introduction and Annotated Glossary. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998. Print.





Now, If you have a hard copy of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia you will notice on page 229 (Numbers 9:23) the Massorah Parva (on the left margin) and the BHS masorah magna register (underneath the main text) alert you to important information about verse 23 (the part in the red box).










 The Masorah Parva tells us that the phrase על־פי יהוה ביד־משה only occurs 6 times in the Hebrew Bible and that special morphological form שָׁמָ֔רוּ also occurrences 6 times. The Masorah register below tells us where we can find the corresponding lists to the Massorah in the companion Masorah Gedolah volume. List 3053 for  שָׁמָ֔רוּ and list 860 for על־פי יהוה ביד־משה  .