En Hakkore
Hi Nzingha,
You cited the following proposed translation of Genesis 16:12: he will be a fruitful man: his hand shall be with everyone, and every man's hand shall be with him
Is it a plausible translation from the Hebrew? No. My response will be point-by-point against citations from the article you linked to.
...let us consider the word בכל. The Hebrew preposition ב usually means "in" or "with". Therefore, the most plausible interpretation of ידו בכל is "his hand (shall be) with everyone"...
If all we had was the clause itself and no context, the suggested translation is perfectly fine. Context, however, will be shown not to support such a translation.
There are no words in the verse which suggests "against-ness", and, as we shall shortly see, the context not only fails to support that meaning, but, on the contrary, essentially rules it out.
False. The article fails to even cite (much less explain) the final clause of the poetic stich, which reads in the NIV: And he will live in hostility toward all his brothers. This is a rather clear contextual indicator, contrary to what is asserted in the statement cited above, that suggests "against-ness".
Application of the same logic shows that the most plausible interpretation of ויד כל בו is: "and every man's hand (shall be) with him".
Once again, based only upon the clause itself removed from context the answer is yes, but context will demonstrate this is not a plausible translation. And to this I now turn our attention. As noted above, the article fails to complete the verse and has left out the following clause:
ועל־פני כל־אחיו ישכן
One of the primary meanings of the preposition על is ‘against’ (translated as such some 400 times in the Old Testament). The strongest indicator that this is indeed the intended meaning/connotation of על is the fact the entire verse is poetic and in the form of a classic Hebrew parallel. When we line up the prepositions as parallels of each other, there is only one logical match between them and that is against.
His hand (will be) against everyone
..and (the) hand of everyone (will be) against him
..and against (the) faces of his brothers he will live.
The clause אעל־פני (and against faces of) is therefore to be understood as a euphemism for hostilities of some kind, as it is translated in the following:
…and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers. (NIV)
…and he shall live at odds with all his kin. (NRSV)
…living his life in defiance of all his kinsmen. (NJB)
…he will live at odds with the rest of his brothers (NLT)
Next, let us consider the word פרא. If we look back two verses, to Genesis 16:10, we see “And the angel of the Lord said … ‘I will greatly multiply thy seed, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.’ “ Viewed in this light, the word פרא takes on an entirely different significance. There is another Hebrew word constructed from the same consonants, but with different vowel points… [qamets-qamets instead of seghol-seghol] which means “to bring forth, to bear fruit”. (Although this word is found in modern Hebrew dictionaries…
Let’s stop right there as the author of the article has failed to understand his/her Hebrew dictionary entry. Any listing of the verbal root פרא will be followed immediately by the word הפריא, which is the Hiphil stem of this verb and this is the only stem this particular verbal root is attested in, which makes the balance of the author’s argument completely invalid as the word in the text, if understood as a participle as the author contends, is in the Qal stem.
…it seems the preferred form of the verb, these days, is פרה… I wonder why this latter form is preferred?
The author’s appeal to ‘these days’ ignores the fact that in the Old Testament the verb to which he/she is fallaciously appealing is found only once (Hosea 13:15), whereas פרה is found about thirty times. In other words, then and now, פרה is the word most commonly used to convey the concept of ‘being fruitful’.
…the participle form of פרא is פורא. But in the Bible, the letter ו (vav) is usually omitted from participles, so in un-voweled Hebrew we would expect to see פרא… Anyone who wishes to dispute this grammatical principle, as it applies to Genesis 16:12, will be hard-pressed to make a case…
Anyone who would dare dispute the presence or absence of a matres lectionis (which is what our author is attempting to convey) would know about as much Hebrew as the author who has misread the dictionary entry and both of them are in over their heads making linguistic mistakes easily spotted by someone who actually knows the language. The participle of the verb פרא exists only in the Hiphil stem and is actually מפריא, which isn’t in our text and (as stated above) the author’s entire argument is invalid.
Since G-d says here that He will “greatly multiply” [Ishmael’s] seed… we must ask which is the most plausible interpretation of פרא… In the context of the passage, it can have only one plausible interpretation: “…a fruitful man…”
This interpretation (translation) is simply not plausible. As noted above, there is no Qal participle of this verb in the first place. Secondly, the author has made another error since a participle acting attributively always follows the noun it modifies, whereas in the passage the alleged participle comes first. These are two very basic grammatical reasons why the author’s proposed translation is quite simply wrong.
Our suspicions are further aroused when we consult the… BDB, to find out where in the Bible – if anywhere – the word פרא occurs in a setting in which it really odes mean “wild ass”… BDB gives the following: Ho 8:9+, Je 14:6+, Jb 6:5, Jb 39:5, Is 32:14, Ps 104:11, Jb 11:12, Je 2:24, Jb 24:5 So the word occurs in Job, and in the Prophets. Note that there is no use of the word anywhere in the Torah! …it can be said that the word פרא, meaning “wild ass”, does not appear in Hebrew literature until 1,000 years after the Torah was written.
Seeing as all of the books in which פרא is found were written before 400 BC (some probably a lot longer before – Job and Psalm 104), ’1,000 years after the Torah was written’ is a needless exaggeration that doesn’t help the author’s case at all. Furthermore, appeal to an argument such as this is fallacious. In order for it to have any merit whatsoever, the author would have to demonstrate that the word found its way into the Hebrew language after the Torah was written – he/she has not done so.
…what our Bible really says about Ishmael is: “…he will be a fruitful man: his hand shall be with everyone, and every man’s hand shall be with him…”
No that is not what Genesis 16:12 says about Ishmael, as I have demonstrated above. The classical translations of this passage are accurate with respect to the original Hebrew, the author’s proposed translation is not. Having said that, I see no reason why one needs to use words that today contain pejorative spins (ex. ‘ass’), nor am I defending any use of this passage as some sort of slur or offense against either Ishmael or Muslims. I see nothing further in the interpretation of the passage than Ishmael was to be a wild man who would live in hostility among his brothers. In fact, there is a play on words in the Hebrew that is lost in the translation: פרא אדם is pere adam (wild man) and when Ishmael was sent away with his mother into the wild, he eventually settled in the Desert of פארן Paran (see Genesis 21:21).
And for whatever it’s worth, Ishmael and Hagar are two of my favorite characters in Genesis (Joseph is the third). God is especially concerned about the plight of the oppressed (which both Ishmael and Hagar are according to the narrative) and His love and care for the young man and his mother can be clearly seen in Genesis 21:14-20.
Hope this has helped…
Kind regards,
Jonathan