We looked at Jeremiah 4:23-27 in class this week and I plan a podcast on the text over at 5 Minute Bible so, since Ill use my own very literal translation there I though I’d publish it here wirth a few notes to explain it.It is intended to be as near word for word as I could get and still be English. So the repetitions stand out, it is laid out to show the terse almost staccato feel. I have noted some of my translation choices with footnotes.

²³I looked at the earth.

See!¹

It’s higgledy piggledy.²

To heaven,

but no light there!

²⁴I looked on the mountains.

See!

They are quaking.

All the hills shake themselves.

²⁵I looked.

See!

No human,

and all the birds of heaven have fled.

²⁶I looked.

See!

The field’s a desert,

and all its cities are destroyed

before YHWH,

before the heat of his anger.

²⁷For thus says YHWH:

All the land will be desolation.

But I will not make a full ending.

²⁸Because of this the earth will mourn,

and the heavens will be dark above,

because I have spoken,

I have decided;

and I have not relented

nor will I turn back

1. הִנֵּה hinneh “look!” can serve a number of functions. In old translations it was often rendered “Lo!” or “Behold!” The important part this construction plays in giving language a “biblical” flavour, illustrates its significance to Hebrew speech. 

   In narrative hinneh often marks a change in view-point:
   Ruth 2:4 where we are invited to “join” Ruth in watching Boaz’ arrival;
   Ruth 3:8, having followed Ruth to Boaz’ feet, we share his surprised awakening.

   It also serves other functions:
   affirmation (translated something like “indeed”) – Ruth 3:2 (where the “look” seems redundant in English);
   explanation “that is…” (which we would put in brackets) Am 7:1;
   call to attention (Ruth 1:15)
   marking events that happen contemporaneously - Ruth 4:1 where וְהִנֵּה suggests that, hardly has Boaz sat down, than the other Goel arrives.

2. תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ tohu vabohu
   This phrase is found most notably in Gen 1:2 (also though split by other words in Is 34:11) translators have to choose a rendering which ideally captures:
   the sense of confusion - rendered in traditional English translations “formless and void” –
   and the echoing sound.

   Various proposals have been tried; Robert Alter’s literary “welter and waste” is good. I have opted in Jer 4:23 for the more homely “higgledy piggeldy”.

In response to my podcast “The last Confession of Jeremiah: Jeremiah 20: Yahweh seduces his prophet” David Haslam asked (on Facebook) about the choice of “seduce” here. He noted that most English translations have other words:

“persuaded/denounce” (ASV & WEB),
“deceived/report” (KJV),

“coerced/denounce” (NET)

“deceived/persecute” (DRC & NIV)

From that list you will see that פתה is not easy to translate, like most words, but more than many it carries a meaning that will in other languages be rendered in different ways according to the context. It does indeed suggest persuading, though often in the sense of deceiving, sometimes coercing. In the qal it has the sense of being simple, open minded, or deceived. Its first occurrence in the Bible (Gen 9:27) it just means “enlarge”.

The piel that we have in Jer 20:7 is used 17 times:

• enlarge (Gen 9:27)
• seduce virgin girl (Ex 22:15 v.16 in English)
• coax, entice – of Delilah technique for getting information from her husband (Jud 14:15; 16:5) of tricking Ahab (1 Kgs 22:20,21,22 also 2 Chron 18:19,20,21) or of humans attempting to trick Yahweh as if he were a god (Ps 78:36)
• deceive (2 Sam 3:25; Pr 24:28)
• seduce (Hos 2:1) of Yhwh as husband persuading his wife (Israel) to return to him from her lovers
• Pr 1:10 might be either coax/entice or deceive but Pr 16:29 suggests the use of force
• Ez 14:9 is perhaps the closest usage at first sight, it involves someone deceiving  a prophet into inquiring of Yhwh on their behalf even though they are an idol worshipper, in which case Yhwh will do the same to the prophet, and even kill him.

So basically most of the usages involve persuading someone to do wrong, often by using sexual wiles. The question that remains concerns Jer 20:7. Does Yhwh here trick a gullible Jeremiah into doing wrong? or Does Yhwh here seduce Jeremiah? Clearly the sexual overtones here cannot be intended literally, but is this the picture being painted? I find it difficult to see Jeremiah in this case claiming that Yhwh has treated him like the prophet in Ezekiel, for Jeremiah is firm that he has spoken the truth. Rather, I suggest that he is claiming to be like an innocent girl (cf. his first confession 11:18ff.) whom Yhwh has persuaded to do as he wishes.

Because in Jer 20:7 that seems to me to be the choice we have: either Jeremiah accuses Yhwh of treating him like a prophet who takes payment from idolaters to give an oracle, or Jeremiah is claiming Yhwh charmed him into what he has done, like a girl seduced by a lover.

What do you think?

Articulated trucks are easier to turn ;) photo by crabchick)

In this post I am NOT thinking of the clear or muffled ar-tic-u-lation that my speech teacher prized, but the other sort. And, teaching “Understanding and Interpreting the Bible” this week the topic of textual articulation came to the fore. First in trying to explain the nature and function of a “conjunction”  to students who have no understanding of grammar (not even those who attended secondary schools with “Grammar” proudly flaunted in their historic names).

Conjunctions, I said are the (often little) words that join and articulate text. They tell us how the parts work together. As such they are very important clues to what a text is doing.

They are. And all¹ languages have them. But² not all languages have them, or use them, equally. And³ they certainly do not use them in the same places. Different languages and different speakers articulate their texts differently.

For this week on spotting the workings of text at a local level, we studied 1 Tim 6:17-19. Most of our students do not learn Greek or Hebrew :(⁴ so we were working on an English text and with English grammar. 1 Timothy 6:19 provides a nice example:

thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.
ἀποθησαυρίζοντας ἑαυτοῖς θεμέλιον καλὸν εἰς τὸ μέλλον, ἵνα ἐπιλάβωνται τῆς ὄντως ζωῆς.

Eduard von Grützner's Falstaff from Wikipedia

Actually the NIV makes the point more dramatically opening the verse “In this way” where the Greek just has a participle. Hebrew texts offer even more of these challenges, since the paratactic constructions favoured by the language use fewer written markers of syntax.

At which point I’ll call back my speech teacher, a grandiloquent old act-tor, for it is only by articulating a written text clearly that we can begin to understand it. For where written grammatical markers of syntax are lacking only clear articulation can “make sense” of the text.

1. Or at least, all that I have studied so far.
2. Yes, I know this is the second time I have started a sentence with a conjunction :) I do hope all prescriptive grammarians are spinning like tops in their graves, or soon will be, since prescriptive grammar is unnecessary and unwanted. Well actually it is not, I need to know that starting sentences with conjunctions is “wrong” for my use of this construction to be chosen for effect, and not mere carelessness. So prescripts you may cease your rotations forthwith :)
3. Yes, a third! When you are on a roll it is hard to stop ;)
4. No, I don’t know how someone can be a serious Bible student without the languages, either. Though I note that only Greek was compulsory at Oxford, and that I failed to take Hebrew, to my shame. To Oxford’s shame I believe that even Greek is now not required for the Honours School of Theology :(

In one of my classes I was asked about translation, so I was delighted to see Susanne’s post Adoption of children: the NRSV and the ESV it deals carefully and clearly with a translation issue whose cultural implications are thorny and it involves both originator and receptor cultures. Do look at it :)

Aristotle’s Feminist Subject has a post in which various translationsof Psalm 90 are compared. As always I’m astounded by the way most treat verse 2:

בְּטֶרֶם׀  הָרִים  יֻלָּדוּ
וַתְּחֹולֵל  אֶרֶץ  וְתֵבֵל וּמֵעֹולָם
עַד־עֹולָם  אַתָּה  אֵל׃

Before the mountains were born
or you gave birth to the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

It seems quite clear to me. I cannot see how else to render the words!

The nearest to this explicitly (I think) maternal imagery for the creation of our world (among the translations in front of me here) comes from the NASB:

Before the mountains were born
Or You gave birth to the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting,
You are God.

though the NIV comes close:

Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

But the rest fudge it. Why? (There is a fuller, though still aimed at non specialist readers version of my take on it in chapter two of my Not Only a Father. Since the format of that work invites, needs, discussion, please go there and discuss either this or one of the other things I say!)