RARE WORDS

RARE WORDS

HEBREW AND ARAMAIC: SOME ISSUES OF TRANSLATION

The primary language of the Old Testament is Hebrew, a complex language that presents a number of difficulties to translators. In order to appreciate the most important of these, we need to explore the way in which Hebrew is written. Classic Hebrew consists of twenty-two letters, each representing a consonant. Vowel sounds were not represented in writing; it was left to the reader to work out what the right vowels were. Most Hebrew words consist of a root with three consonants. As most readers will not have familiarity with Hebrew terms, we can illustrate some of the basic principles with some English words.

Suppose that English were to be written without vowels. The reader would use the context to work out what the appropriate vowel sounds might be. Thus the three-letter root btr could be read as “batter,” “better,” or “butter,” depending on the context (the duplication of the central letter being characteristic of English orthography, even though only one of the central letters is pronounced).

As noted above, the Old Testament is written predominantly in Hebrew, with some short sections in Aramaic, the international language of diplomacy of the Ancient Near East. These sections often take the form of proclamations by Persian monarchs of relevance to the Jews. The book of Ezra, for example, describes the gradual return of the Jews to Jerusalem after their forcible deportation to the great city of Babylon a generation earlier. Examples of these documents include:

Aramaic presents no particular translation difficulties, and the evidence we have concerning the competence of the companies of translators assigned to the Old Testament is impressive.

Hebrew possesses some characteristics that can cause difficulties for translators, and appear to have done so for the King James translators. It must be remembered that our understanding of the Hebrew language has developed considerably since 1600 for a number of reasons. A wealth of knowledge has been accumulated on other languages of the Ancient Near East, such as Akkadian and Ugaritic, which often cast light on the meaning of a Hebrew root. This means that modern translators often have a better understanding of the dis-tinctives of Hebrew, and are able to see that the King James translators have, at times, made errors.

IDIOMS

One of the most important features of the Hebrew language is its idioms—that is, distinctive ways of speaking which do not mean what they literally suggest. For example, two English idioms may illustrate this point. “To be hot under the collar,” if taken literally, would imply a sudden rise in temperature at the base of the neck. In fact, it is an idiomatic way of speaking, which means something like “to get angry.” The French express something like the same idea in the idiomatic expression “to have mustard up the nose.” “To be in the soup” is not to be taken literally, but is an idiomatic way of saying “to be in trouble.” German expresses a similar idea with the idiom “to sit in the ink.” The King James translators had to wrestle with the question of which Hebrew expressions were to be taken literally, and which were to be seen as idiomatic. Some illustrations will make this point clearer.

The First Oxford Company was assigned to translate the major prophets, including the prophet Jeremiah. At eleven points during this work, Jeremiah uses the Hebrew idiom “to rise up early to do something.” The Oxford Company of translators chose to translate this literally, giving the following translations:

Jeremiah 7:13: “And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the LORD, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not.”

The difficulty is that this does not really make sense. The same difficulty can be seen in each of the remaining instances, such as the following:

Jeremiah 29:19: Because they have not hearkened to my words, saith the LORD, which I sent unto them by my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; but ye would not hear, saith the LORD.

What has the idea of “rising up early” got to do with the point at issue? Here we have an example of a Hebrew idiom that the translators interpreted literally and so failed to appreciate the general drift of the text. The idiom “to rise up early to do something” actually means “to do something continually.” Hence the second of the quotations just noted has the following meaning: “They did not listen to my words which I sent unto them by my servants the prophets; even though I sent them continually they still would not listen to them.”

Yet at other points, the King James translators correctly interpreted Hebrew idioms. For example, the Hebrew idiom “bone of” is often used to mean something like “the essence of” or “very.” The King James Bible generally gets this right—for example, translating the literal Hebrew expression “bone of the day” (Genesis 7:13; Ezekiel 2:3) as “this selfsame day” or “this very day.”

RARE WORDS

The King James translators were occasionally faced with rare Hebrew words whose meaning was obscure, including some that were used only once or twice throughout the entire Bible. Working out what these words meant placed considerable strain on the translators. This point is explicitly noted in the preface, in which the translators own up to the difficulties they encountered.

There be many words in the Scriptures, which be never found there but once, (having neither brother or neighbor, as the Hebrews speak) so that we cannot be holpen by conference of places. Again, there be many rare names of certain birds, beasts and precious stones, etc. concerning the Hebrews themselves are so divided among themselves for judgment, that they may seem to have defined this or that, rather because they would say something, than because they were sure of that which they said.

Some examples will illustrate the severe difficulties that the translators faced.

In the Old Testament, 2 Kings 2:42 tells us of an episode in which Elisha was brought some food by a visitor.

And there came a man from Baalshalisha, and brought the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley, and full ears of corn in the husk thereof. And he said, Give unto the people, that they may eat.

Our interest concerns the final item that was brought to Elisha—the “full ears of corn in the husk thereof.” The Hebrew phrase translated in this way occurs only once in the entire Old Testament, and it is far from clear what it means. The context is suggestive, but not decisive. Here, the King James translators had little option; they had to allow the context to determine the meaning, in the knowledge that the matter was ultimately not of decisive importance. Not being sure about what was brought to Elisha was not going to disqualify anyone from being saved, in their view. Modern scholarship has seen an affinity between this phrase and a Ugaritic counterpart. In the light of this evidence concerning the meaning of the root in other languages of the Ancient Near East, this word would now be translated as something like “heads of new grain.”

A similar issue can be seen arising in Isaiah 2:16. Again, a word is found that occurs in this passage, and at no other point in the Bible. The King James Bible translates this passage as a declaration of coming divine judgment against “all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.” At first sight, this does not make much sense. Looking at the full passage (Isaiah 2:12–16), it is clear that the Hebrew poetic device of parallelism is in operation—that is, the repetition of ideas within or across lines:

For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low: And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan, And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up, And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.

The parallels between “cedars of Lebanon” and “oaks of Bashan,” or between “high mountains” and “hills that are lifted up,” suggests that the final line of the passage ought to end with a word or phrase that somehow parallels “ships of Tarshish.” Again, access to additional ancient Near Eastern texts, not available to the King James translators, suggests that the Hebrew word means a specific kind of ship, presumably noted for its grandeur or speed. While we still do not know exactly what kind of ship the passage had in mind, it is clear that it refers to some special type of ship that would have been known to its readers on account of some outstanding quality.

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