Category: Expert Opinions

In the table below, we see that the Targum’s substitute att אתת for ishshah אשה in the Genesis Creation Account. 

In Fuerst’s Lexicon p. 157, it states that ishshah is equivalent to ashsh אשש, and Davies Lexicon p. 71 & 73 indicates that att אתת is the Chaldee form of the Hebrew ashsh אשש.  In Gesenius’s Hebrew Lexicon p. 84, אשש means ‘found, establish, show yourselves firm’.  In Fuerst’s Lexicon ** p. 167, and Davies’ Lexicon p. 71, אשש means 1 ‘to be powerful, strong, to make strong, firm, to establish’, derivitives include the ish איש (a form of esh אש), or 2 ‘to glow, to burn’, Fuerst’s Lexicon indicates it is comp. Aram. את, derivatives are אשה,אש, and אשת.

In my analysis of ishshah אשה in Fact #145, I concluded it means ‘mighty toward fire’, because it is the same as ishsheh אשה (Strong’s 801 65 occurrences) that means ‘offering by fire, made by fire’, that in Numbers 28:9 has a sweet aroma to Yahweh, and the root is the noun esh אש (Strong’s 784) that means ‘a fire’, with the he ה suffix that ‘expresses the concept of movement toward’, thus ishshah and ishsheh mean ‘toward fire’.   Since Yahweh יהוה is like a consuming fire (Exodus 3:2 & 24:17), it isn’t a stretch to conclude ishshah and ishsheh mean ’mighty toward Yahweh’. 

The Lexicon’s give the traditional meaning for ishshah אשה as ‘woman, wife’, which simply identifies a female personage, and fails to encapsulate her power and close relationship with Yahweh.  This broader meaning is found in Davies’ Lexicon p. 66, where it states that ishshah אשה also means ‘to be firm’, and ‘fig. to heal’, in Gesenius’s Hebrew Lexicon p. 77-8, where it says ishshah אשה also means ‘their fire’, or ‘an offering made by fire . . . means to friendly relations betw. God & man’, or ‘support’ (אשיותיה only found in Jer 50:15 where it is translated ‘her foundation(s)/pillars’), and in Fuerst’s Lexicon p. 157, where it says that ishshah אשה also means ‘to be firm, close, firmly fitted together’.  It is obvious that both ishshah and att were translated ‘woman’ or ‘wife’ to support the traditional account that the female was created from and for the male, disquising her true nature. 

In the TO, the basic form of ishshah is אתתא in Gen 2:22, 23, 3:1, 4, 6, 13 x 2, & 15, with the aleph א suffix that in Aramaic indicates the possessive ‘our’.  When created in Gen 2:22 Yahweh gods called her ‘our mighty toward fire’, then in Gen 2:23 Adam and Satan do the same, perhaps revealing a battle for the heart of the ‘mighty toward fire’.  The ‘serpent’, Adam and Satan, claim possession in Gen 3:1, and precede to trick her into breaking Yahweh’s command to not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  In Gen 3:2, 12 & 16 the yod after the aleph in איתתא may indicate a corruption of the female (however ishshah in the ST doesn’t change form in these verses) , after which Yahweh gods call her ‘your mighty fire’ אתתך in Gen 3:17 and Adam and Eve leave the garden of Eden, no longer with Yahweh gods to provide for and protect them.

The forms in which att אתת is found in the Samaritan Targum on Tanakh.info, אתה in Gen 2:22, אתהא in Gen 2:23, אתאה in Gen 3:1, 15 & 16, are not found in any Chaldee Lexicon, and they do not match the forms found Samaritanische Pentateuch version die Genesis in der Hebraischen edited by Moritz Heidenheim, where all occurrences are in the form אתתה except Gen 3:17 which is in the form אתתך, with the possessive pronoun ‘your’, on which all the text are in agreement.  As a result, we can’t be certain whether the text should contain the possessive prefix ‘his’ in Gen 2:24, 25, 3:8, 20, 21, & 4:1, or not.

In Gen 3:20 of the HB and TO, Adam ‘called (qara קרא)’ her (ishshah/att translated ‘wife’ in this verse) ‘life-giver (chavvah חוה translated ‘Eve’)’, but in the ST, Adam ‘cried/lamented/complained (zaaq  זעק)’ her appointed name ‘life-giver’.  The word qara, makes it appear that Adam was a god, calling creation into existence the way the gods (elohim) did in Gen 1:5, 8, & 10, but zaaq reveals that Adam was upset with the females power to create life, a more likely scenario. 

From the beginning of time, the fact that females have the ability to bear offspring has caused men great angst.  Procreation – carrying on their lineage is important to many men, especially powerful ones who desire an heir, but before the advent of DNA testing, they could never be 100% certain a child was theirs – a rather dis-empowering state of affairs.

In looking at the History of the Hebrew Bible, the Masoretic and Samaritan texts, it becomes apparent that there are very divergent opinions on the accuracy and reliability of all the source text of the Hebrew Bible, leaving us no option but investigate the matter for ourselves. 

Having studied the Hebrew text of Gen 1:1 to 2:24, we are in a better position to compare the text of the Targums for similarities and differences, to see if they differ from our original interpretation.  We learned some interesting facts in the History of Hebrew Language, the Hebrew Bible and the Targums, which will help us with our study going forward. 

We will use the following Chaldee Lexicons (free in pdf format on archive.org) to analyze and translate the Targum text:

• Lee’s Lexicon, short for ‘A Lexicon of Hebrew, Chaldee, and English’ by Samuel Lee, 1840        
• Fuerst’s Lexicon, short for ‘A Hebrew & Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament’ by Dr Julius Fuerst, 1885                                                                       
• Davies’ Lexicon, short for ‘A Compendious and Complete Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament’ by Benjamin Davies, 1879                                                                                             
• Gesenius’s Hebrew Lexicon, short for ‘Gesenius’s Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament’ translated by Edward Robinson 1907
• Gesenius’s Chaldee Lexicon, short for ‘Gesenius’s Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures’ translated by S P Tregelles 1857  
• Harkavy’s Dictionary, short for ‘Students’ Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary to the Old Testament’ by A Harkavy 1914                                                                                                            

In addition, we will consult with the books Christological Aramaic Grammar by Dr. Gary Staats, and A Short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic by Alger F. Johns, to  assist with Aramaic grammar, prefixes and suffixes.

We will begin comparing the names/titles used for the male and female in Genesis 1 to 4:1 found in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible (HB), the Targum Onkelos (TO), and Samaritan Targum (ST).  We will compare the ST text found on Tanakh.info with the Samaritanische Pentateuch version die Genesis in der Hebraischen edited by Moritz Heidenheim, 1884.  Then we will incorporate the comparison of the text into our study beginning with Gen 2:25.  After we are complete Genesis 3, we will go back and compare the text of Gen 1:1 to 2:24.  

In his article The Samaritan Pentateuch, http://classic.net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=Pentateuch,%20The%20Samaritan author J. E. H. Thompson presents the history of the Samaritan Pentateuch.  The Greek’s knew of the Samaritan Pentateuch in the 1^st century AD – “Origen knew of it”, “Eusebius of Caesarea in his Chronicon compares the ages of the patriarchs before Abraham in the Septuagint with those in the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Massoretic Text”, and “Cyril of Jerusalem notes agreement of Septuagint and Samaritan in Gen 4:8” (I 1).  The Samaritan Pentateuch must have been written at the same time as the Targum Onkelos and Jonathon.

Thompson states in his introduction, the fact that the Samaritan community in Nablus had a “recension of the Pentateuch which differs in some respects from the Massoretic has been long recognized as important.”  The Nablus roll was examined by Dr. Mills who indicated it “has the appearance of very great antiquity, but is wonderfully well preserved” (II 1), “the Jews admit that the character in which the Samaritan Pentateuch is written is older than their square character” (II 2), it is written in the same Aramaic “in which the Jewish Targums were written, sometimes called Chaldee” (V). 

Thompson says the Samaritan Pentateuch was missing for a millennium, until 1616 when a copy was purchased in Damascus by Pietro de la Valle, in 1623 presented to the Paris Oratory, then published in the Paris Polyglot, by Morinus, a priest of the Oratory, who emphasized the difference between it and the Massoretic Text, to have the church intervene to settle which was Scripture, and a fierce controversy resulted  (I 2).  The controversy makes it challenging to find unbiased opinions about the Samaritan Targum. 

In assessing the Relation of the Samaritan Recension to the Masoretic Text and to the Septuagint (III), Thompson criticizes Gesenius’s assessment of the differences because it was “founded on the assumption that the Samaritan Pentateuch is the later” (III 1), and “the assumption of Gesenius and of such Jewish writers as Kohn that the Massoretic text is always correct due to mere prejudice” (III 1. 1 c).  He classifies the variations as being due to either accident or intention, providing examples each in the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Massoretic Text, and the Septuagint and Peshitta (III 1 1 & 2).  In his review of the hypothesises (III 2), Thompson states “One has only to compare the Samaritan, Septuagint and Massoretic Text of any half a dozen consecutive chapters in the Pentateuch to prove . . . neither is dependent on the others.” 

Thompson provides a list of recommended books on the Samaritan’s and the Samaritan Pentateuch, all of which can be found in pdf on Archive.org:

• The Samaritan script is found in the Paris and London polyglots.  Walton’s text in the London Polyglot is transcribed in square characters by Blayney, 1790.  (See the paragraph below which contains Abraham Tal’s concern about amendments made by Walton to the Samaritan text published in the London Polyglot in 1657.) 
• Three Months’ Residence at Nablus and an Account of the Modern Samaritans by Rev. John Mills, 1864.
• Fragments of a Samaritan Targum by Nutt, 1874.
• The Samaritans, the Earliest Jewish Sect by J. A. Montgomery, 1907.
• The Samaritan Pentateuch and Modern Criticism by J. Iverach Munro, 1911.

In Abraham Tal’s rendering of the event in The Samaritan Targum to the Pentateuch, Its Distinctive Characteristics and Its Metamorphosis, he confirms the Samaritan Targum was found by Pietro della Vale in the Samaritan community of Damascus, who brought it to Rome in 1616, and nearly 30 years later, in 1645, it was published by Morinus in the sixth volume of the Paris Polyglot.  Since this agrees with Thompson’s account, we can be fairly confident this information is accurate.

In the same paper, Tal alleges that Walton made many amendments to the Samaritan text published in the London Polyglot in 1657, and Walton’s text was used in the Das samaritanische Targum zum Pentateuch published by A. Brull, even though it had been copied in 1514, after Aramaic was no longer spoken in the Samaritan community, and the scribes unfamiliar with the language of the text.  These charges are addressed in the Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Right Rev. Brian Walton, D. D. (1821) which includes Dr. Walton’s Own Vindication of the London Polyglot which is available on archive.org (in pdf) or purchased for a reasonable price from Amazon.  Given the differing opinions, we must test the text and come to our own conclusions, but this is always the case regardless.

That biased opinions exist about the Samaritan text should come as no surprise, since the conflict between the Jews and the Samaritans may go back to “the time of Judges (1100 – 1025 BCE) . . . the beginning of the Samaritan Schism” according to David Steinberg in The Origin and Nature of the Samaritans and their Relationship to Second Temple Jewish Sects.  Steinberg reveals that the foundation of their conflict is their common heritage with the Samaritan’s considering themselves to be direct descendants of the line of Aaron, whereas the Jews consider the Samaritans to be gentiles.

The conflict between the Jews and Samaritans is evident  in the New Testament.  The Jews had a negative attitude towards Samaritan’s, even accusing Yahshua of being one in John 8:48.  The Samaritans did not receive Yahshua on his way to Jerusalem because he was a Jew in Luke 9: 51 – 56.  Both Jews and Samaritans were conditioned by their priests and leaders to hate and avoid contact with each other.

It is a sin to show favouritism James 2:9, God does not show favouritism Acts 10:34, all are equal before Yahweh Gal 3:28.  In his parable of the ‘good Samaritan’, Yahshua spoke of a Samaritan showing mercy for a man who had been robbed and beaten, and he commanded his disciples to ‘do the same’ in Luke 10: 30 – 37.  When Yahshua healed ten lepers, only a Samaritan, a foreigner, returned to thank him, to whom it said “your faith has made you well” in Luke 17: 11 – 19.  A Samaritan woman was surprised when he spoke to her at a well, asking her to give him a drink, and he said if she asked, he would have given her ‘living water’, and revealed himself to her as the prophesied Messiah in John 4: 7 – 29.  Yahshua showed no favouritism based on nationality or gender, and we must follow his example. 

According to Wikipedia’s article Targum Onkelos, although authorship  is often attributed to ‘Onkelos’, many scholars believe it was Aquila of Sinope, who made the Greek translation before he converted to Judaism, then wrote the aramaic translation called the Targum Onkelos in the 1^st century or early in the 2^nd century, under the direction of Rabbis Yehoshua and Eliezer.  Some of the language dates to the late 4^th and early 5^th centuries, because it underwent “its final redaction” at that time.

The article states the “Onkelos’ Aramaic translation of the Pentateuch (Five Books of Moses) is almost entirely a word-by-word, literal translation of the Hebrew Masoretic Text”.  A strange way of stating the relationship between the text since the Onkelos was written centuries before the Masoretic text.  The Targum Onkelos contains supplemental material in the form of aggadic (non-legalistic exegesis) paraphrase to minimize ambiquities and obscurities, usually where the original Hebrew contained an idiom, homonym or metaphor which could not be understood otherwise.  For example, the translator replaced ‘human-like’ characteristics of God, for example “my face” is replaced with “from before me” in Ex 33:23, and “beneath his feet” is replaced by “under his throne of glory” in Ex 24:10, but as we have discovered in our word studies to-date, the Hebrew text has a broader meaning that is deficient in English translations. 

The article lists 25 “more notable changes”, of which the 4 below impact our study of Gen 1 – 3:

• Genesis 1:2 Aramaic: וְאַרְעָא הֲוָת צָדְיָא וְרֵיקָנְיָא, in Hebrew characters [= “…and the earth was devastated and empty”], instead of “…and the earth was without form and void.”
• Genesis 2:7 Aramaic: הות באדם לְרוּחַ מְמַלְלָא, in Hebrew characters [= “…and it became in man a speaking spirit”], instead of “…and man became a living soul.”
• Genesis 3:5 Aramaic: וּתְהוֹן כְּרַבְרְבִין, in Hebrew characters [= “…and you shall be like potentates”], instead of “…and you shall be like gods.”  Explained in Reference 25 “The literal words used in the Hebrew text are: ‘and you shall be like elohim.’ The word elohim, however, is a Hebrew homonym, having multiple meanings. It can mean either God, angels, judges, potentates (in the sense of ‘rulers’ or ‘princes’), nobles, and gods (in the lower case). In most English translations of Genesis 3:5 it is rendered as “gods’ (in the lower case), and which, according to Onkelos, is a mistranslation and should be translated as ‘potentates’.”
• Genesis 3:15 Aramaic: הוּא יְהִי דְּכִיר מָה דַּעֲבַדְתְּ לֵיהּ מִלְּקדְמִין וְאַתּ תְּהֵי נָטַר לֵיהּ לְסוֹפָא, in Hebrew characters [=”…he (i.e. Eve’s offspring) shall remember what you (i.e. the serpent) did to him at the beginning, but you (i.e. the serpent) shall hold it against him at the end”], instead of “he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

The change to Gen 1:2 and many others are mentioned in the Raymond Apple’s Book Review of Onkelos on the Torah: Understanding the Bible Text in the Jewish Bible Quarterly.  In Gen 1:14 ‘for ancient days’ becomes ‘for counting days and years’.  Apple discusses at great length the fact that throughout the Pentateuch, elohim is changed to YHVH, with the exception of Gen 1:27 where the phrase “in the image of God” was too well known to be altered, and where a pronoun is attached to elohim, such as ‘our God’. 

We see in the explanation of the rabbinic exegesis about the two names of God, their lack of understanding of the Messiah’s position in the God head from the beginning of time, which they change to suit their doctrine.  Anthropomorphisms are avoided by replacing “God did” with “the word or glory of God did”, and passive “it was done before God”, except in Gen 1:26 it is left as “let us make man in our image”, again because this verse is too well known.   Unfortunately, what resulted was an inconsistent mix of redaction for similar words, making the Targum Onkelos a translation of questionable value.

In his article What Is the Masoretic Text?  The Beginners Guide, author Ryan Nelson opens with “Most Jews and Protestants consider the Masoretic Text the authoritative Hebrew Bible . . . written sometime between the seventh and tenth centuries AD . . . most English translations of the Old Testament are based on the Masoretic Text”.  Nelson’s states that the Masoretic text “was based on the meticulously preserved oral tradition and the best available manuscripts of the original Hebrew text”.

By Nelson’s account “manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible were lost in the destruction of the second temple in 70 AD, so the rabbinic community began transcribing the oral tradition”, and “about a millennium before the Masoretic text was finished, rabbis began notating the original Hebrew with punctuation and additional letters to help readers correctly interpret the text”.  He states that “the Mishnah preserved the oral tradition in written form”.

According to Nelson, “by the ninth century . . . a popular Jewish sect known as the Karaites (‘readers’) was advocating for Jews to abandon the rabbinic tradition and read the ‘unadulterated’ (or rather, uninterpreted) Hebrew Bible . . . to save the Hebrew Bible . . . the Masoretes  produced a new copy . . . they used rabbinic tradition to add the most intricate system of punctuation and stress marks anyone had ever seen . . . so there could only be one way to read and understand it; the same way rabbis had for centuries.” 

Nelson makes this all sound perfectly wonderful, however as Katharine Bushnell stated in her book God’s Word to Women, “when we speak of the Bible as inspired, infallible and inviolable, we do not refer to our English version, or any mere version, but to the original text . . . written without any spaces between words in totally different looking letters from those we call ‘Hebrew’ at the present time; and the language as first written contained no vowels.” (#5). 

As Bushnell explains “Hebrew . . . was practically a ‘dead language’ as early as B. C. 250 . . . in the absence of expressed vowels, its pronunciation was likely to become lost.  So the Scribes took four consonants, ‘a h w and j’ and inserted them into the text to indicate vowel sounds . . . (that) in the end led to confusion” (#6).  She considers these changes to be “uninspired” (#7), added by Jews who were “bitter opponents of the teachings and of the spirit of Christianity”, and “held women in utter contempt” (#8).  She demonstrates how “the Word might be changed into insipid nonsense, perhaps, by the manipulation of two or three consonants of a vowel less language” in #9 – 15.

According to the British Library, the first complete printed text of the Mishnah was compiled around 200 by Judah the Prince, becoming the earliest authoritative body of Jewish oral law, containing the teaching of rabbinic sages.  The Mishnah supplements the Torah which are the first five books of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, that form the basis of Jewish written law.  Around 500 AD the rabbis added the Gemara (‘sea’ of learning) to the Mishnah called the Talmud (‘teaching’).  https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/first-complete-mishnah

That the Jewish law was compiled by a man with the title ‘prince’ could only mean the Sanhedrin had been reestablished, after being destroyed along with the temple in 70 AD.  According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the Sanhedrin had been the supreme religious body in Israel before the destruction of the temple, headed by a president, title ‘prince’, and vice president, titled ‘father of the court’, with 69 sages, to total 71 members, which according to Hellenistic sources, the Sanhedrin was a political and judicial council headed by the country’s ruler.

The fact that the Sanhedrin, the very people who had Yahshua put to death, are the authors of the Massoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, is very disturbing.  Bushnell’s claim that they were “bitter opponents to the teachings and spirit of Christianity” is all the more poignant.  Yahshua rebuked the Scribes and Pharisees, saying that Isaiah prophesied about them teaching as doctrine the precepts of men, nullifying, disregarding, seting aside the word of God for the sake of their tradition in Matt 15: 1 – 9 and Mark 7: 4 – 13, and he said “you are of [your] father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.  Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own [nature], for he is a liar and the father of lies.” John 8:44.

In a University of Calgary writeup on the Mishnah, it states “Mishnah can refer in a general way to the full tradition of the Oral Torah, as formulated by the Rabbis in the first centuries of the Common Era”, confirming it was “compiled by Rabbi Judah the ‘Prince’, before his death around 217 C.E.”  However, it contradicts “to a view that appears in many histories and introductions” that the traditions were written down, “but merely determining and organizing of a fixed text that was subsequently disseminated by memory”, likely because, as Nelson stated, it was “a forbidden project: transcribing the oral tradition.”  https://people.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/TalmudMap/Mishnah.html

The New World Encyclopedia (NEW) states the Massoretic text (MT) is “the Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible (Tanakh)’, also used in Protestant Bibles, and in recent decades Catholic Bibles.  The MT was copied, edited, and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7^th and 10^th centuries AD.  The Hebrew word mesorah refers to the transmission of Jewish tradition, including the markings of the text and marginal notes in manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible.  The MT has numerous differences compared to the Septuagint (and the Samaritan Targum as we discuss in the section below).  https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Masoretic_Text 

According to NEW, the Hebrew word masorah (מסורה, alt. מסורת) is “taken from Ezekiel 20:37 and means originally ‘fetter’.  The fixation of the text was considered to be in the nature of a fetter upon its exposition.  When, in the course of time, the Masorah had become a traditional discipline, the term became connected with the verb (‘to hand down’), and was given the meaning of ‘tradition’”.  But looking at masoreth and related words below, I believe it means ‘taking captive with false instruction’.

The word masoreth מסרת (Strong’s 4562 1 occurrence) means ‘bind, gird, harness, hold’, used in Ezek 20:37 in the context of Yahweh using the rod to bring Israel into the bond (masoreth) of the covenant, but there is evidence against this text being inspired.  The root asar אסר (Strong’s 631 70 occurrences) means ‘to tie, bind, imprison’, found in Isa 61:1 prophesying the Messiah who will “. . . proclaim to the captive’s liberty and to imprisoned (asar אסור) opening of the eyes/prison (peqach-qoach  פקח קוח).”  The root masar מסר (Strong’s 4560 2 occurrences) means ‘commit, deliver’, from a primitive root that means ‘to sunder, set apart, or apostatize’ – apostatize means ‘renounce religious or political belief or principle’, or mosar מסר (Strong’s 4561 1 occurrence) means ‘instruction’. 

In his Ancient Hebrew Timeline, Jeff Benner parallels Biblical events, alphbets, inscriptions, Hebrew Bible’s, and Translations https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/biblical-history/ancient-hebrew-timeline.htm.  Benner’s timeline reveals early Semitic (Hebrew)  was pictographic, and evolved into Paleo-Hebrew (middle Semitic) that resembled the Phoenician alphabet, and was used by Israel until the Babylonian exile in the 6^th century BC, when it evolved into Aramaic (late Semitic script).  The Greek adopted the middle Semetic alphabet in the 10^th century BC, that evolved into the modern form in the 9^th century BC, and in the 4^th century BC Jewish scholars translated the Torah into Greek, known as the Septuagint. 

In Benners Ancient Hebrew Timeline, he states “The Hebrew language ceases as their native language (135 AD).”  In the 1^st century AD, the Torah was translated into Aramaic, named the Targum Onkelos after its alleged author, and the prophets were translated into Aramaic by Jonathon Ben Uziel, named the Targum Jonathon.  In the 2^nd century AD, the writings and prophets were translated into Greek, in the Septuagint.  In the 3^rd century AD, the Talmud was written in Aramaic (the Late Semitic script) and the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament were translated into Aramaic, titled the Peshitta, and translated into Latin by Jerome (the Vulgate) in the 5^th century AD.  In the 7^th century AD, the English language adopted the Roman alphabet.

Benner indicates that vowel pointings were added to the Hebrew (Modern Semitic) in the 10^th century AD, and the oldest known Hebrew Bible was written in modern Hebrew by the Jewish Masorites.  In the 15^th century AD, the Gutenburg Bible became the first Bible, a copy of the Latin Vulgate, printed on moveable type, and in 1611 the King James Bible was published.  In the 19^th century AD, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda started a revival of the Hebrew language, which became the official language of the newly established state of Israel in 1948.

Steve Rudd divides the history of the Hebrew language into four periods based on the evolution of the alphabet https://www.bible.ca/manuscripts/Septuagint-LXX-Hebrew-ancient-earliest-writing-Bible-scripts-alphabets-origin-Mosaic-heiroglyphic-Paleo-Aramaic-Masoretic-Jewish-Greek.htm.  First, Joseph borrowed 22 Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols as the character alphabet for each sound in the Hebrew language called hieroglyphic Hebrew (Abstract).  Second, the 22 letters were simplified into “Paleo-Hebrew” in the time of Samuel, which was used until the Babylonian captivity (Abstract).  Third, Aramaic Hebrew was adopted, “derived from the Hebrew alphabet they replaced” (#9).  After Hebrew went extinct about 300 BC, a fourth Hebrew alphabet was invented by the Masoretes in 600 – 900 AD that added vowels, known as ‘Masoretic Hebrew’ (Abstract). 

There is consensus among religious scholars and historians that Jesus and the Apostles spoke Aramaic, and whether he knew Hebrew or not is debatable.  According to Steve Rudd, at the time of Jesus, the Jews in Judea spoke Aramaic (not Hebrew) and Greek was the language of commerce (Abstract).  Britannica contradicts itself, stating that Aramaic replaced Hebrew as the language of the Jews as early as the 6^th century BC, confirming that the books of Daniel and Ezra are written in Aramaic, and the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, yet claims that Hebrew remained the language of religion, government and the upper class.  Wouldn’t scripture have been written in Hebrew if this was true?

There are contradictory claims about the extinction of the Hebrew language, but the evidence supports that when the nation of Israel went into captivity in Babylon, Hebrew fell into disuse and was replace by Aramaic Hebrew, which is the language the Targums were written in.

In the next article we will take a closer look at the the history of the Massoretic text, for a fuller understanding of it’s history, language, to assess it’s reliability.  Then we will do the same for the Targum Onkelos and the Samaritan Targum.

Recognizing that the men in control of scripture have twisted it to elevate themselves to gods while reducing woman to inferior, evil beings has been an awakening for me. 

In her article Genesis From Eve’s Point of View, Pamela Milne (written over 30 years ago on March 26, 1989) talks about the negative impact the story of Eve has had on women throughout history, having “ been interpreted in patriarchal and even misogynist ways by male bible scholars and theologians”, to support that women are “the devil’s gateway . . . the unsealer of that forbidden tree . . . the first deserter of the divine law . . . (who destroyed) God’s image, man.” (Tertullian),  “helper of less importance” (Ambrose), “misbegotten males” (Thomas Aquinas), that justified “persecuting women as witches” in the 15^th century, and “a wife who is not properly subordinate”.

Milne talks about monumental work of Phyllis Trible of Union Theological Seminary in the 1970’s to reinterpret the Eve-Adam story.  Trible made some important arguments that we can and must build upon:

1. That Adam need not necessarily be thought of as male . . . the Hebrew text presents us with a word-pay: ha-‘adam’ (“earth creature”) is created from the earth, ha-‘adamah’, and remains basically sexless until the differentiation of female from male occurs in Genesis 2: 21 – 23, only with the advent of sexuality does the term ha-adam acquire the secondary meaning “male”; but even then is an ambiguous term.

2. The serpent speaks only to Eve, which ‘Church fathers’ interpret to mean that the woman is morally weaker than man thus an easier prey, that woman is simpleminded, gullible, untrustworthy; or that she is more sexual and her sexuality is used by the serpent to ruin the man, which is mere speculation. Eve’s “temptation” of Adam is not actually present in Genesis but has been read into the text by commentators.

3. Adam’s specific naming (and implied dominion) of Eve – – after the Fall – – is actually a consequence of sinfulness.

Milne is disappointed that Trible’s ideas “have been almost entirely ignored by mainstream biblical scholarship”, but is it a realistic to expect the Church and the world to change what has existed since the beginning of time?  After all, we can only change ourselves.  A better goal is to come to the truth through study of scripture with the guidance of the spirit of truth who proceeds from the father John 15:26 & 16:13, knowing that the world cannot receive it because it does not see it or know it John 14:17.

We must accept that we will not change the way the Genesis Creation account is understood by the masses because they have been brainwashed into believing Satan’s lies.  He offers males dominion in the kingdom’s of the world if they worship him, an offer that Yahshua refused saying “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only” in Luke 4: 1 – 13. Through his suffering and death Rev 5:6, he become the perfect husband for his bride, the saints in the New Jerusalem Rev 21:2.

That is why the world is in the mess it’s in today with rampant greed and violence and why we must “seek first the kingdom” as Yahshua said in Matt 6:33. We must “enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are MANY who enter through it.  For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life and there are FEW who find it.” in Matt 7: 13 – 14.

Godspeed!

In the Genesis creation account, we find the very reason for our existence, what it means to be male or female, and why there is pain, suffering and death in the world.  But the creation story we have been told since childhood contains many lies, which we have been told so many times,  it has become to us an “illusion of truth” that is difficult to overcome.  We must forget what we have been told happened and look to the original Hebrew text for answers.

The mistranslated and misinterpreted text in Genesis has and continues to be the predominant ‘proof text’ used by organized religion to subordinate women to men.  As a result, many violate Yahshua’s commandment in in Matthew 23: 8 & 10 to call no one teacher or leader, and deny equality among his disciples.  God’s warning to the woman that her desire for a mighty one (Hebrew ish) will result in him ruling over her in Gen 3:16 has been true from the beginning of time, and today patriarchy is common place in our homes, churches and society at large.

Hebrew Without Vowels or Accents

The text of Genesis 2: 15 to 17 appears as follows

Samaritan Targum Interlinear Translation

Here’s the interlinear translation of Genesis 2:15 to 17 from tanakh.info:

Facts About Hebrew

We can add the following to our facts about Hebrew:

132. In fact #83, we considered the Strong’s Concordance meaning of the noun daath דעת and the verb yada ידע to mean thinking not doing, but  the man ‘knowing Eve his woman” resulted in her “becoming pregnant and bearing Cain” in Gen. 4:1, evidencing that daath and yada can indicate ‘experiencing’.

Constructing the Sentences

Let’s construct the sentences:

Gen. 2:15  The subject ‘Yahweh gods’, compound verbs ‘took’ and ‘cast down’, and object ‘the man in the garden of Eden’, and compound verbs ‘to serve and take heed to self’.

Gen. 2:16  The subject ‘Yahweh gods’, compound verbs ‘commanded’, and object ‘the man’, and a sub-clause with the verb ‘consume’, and object ‘from every tree the garden . . .’.

Gen. 2:17  The object continues from v. 16 ‘ . . . but from tree the experience good and evil not’, and a sub-clause with the verb ‘consume’ and object ‘from it for in day’ and a sub-clause with the verb ‘consume’ and object ‘from it worthy of death, you worthy of death’.

Translation

The paragraph translates as follows:

And seized Yahweh gods the man and cast down him in garden of Eden to serve and take heed to self.  And commanded/prohibited Yahweh gods the man saying “from every tree the garden consume, you consume, but from tree experience good and evil not you consume from it, for in day you consume from it worthy of death, you worthy of death”.

Analysis

When Yahweh seized (for the purpose of instruction/discipline see fact #115) and cast down (see fact #116) the man in Eden to serve (see fact #117) and take heed to self (see fact #118)” in Gen 2:15, it represented a deterioration in the man’s condition.  As a result, Yahweh issues man the first command/prohibition (see fact #127) saying “from every tree the garden devour you consume, and from tree the experience (see fact #132) of good and evil not you consume from it, for in day you consume from it worthy of death (see fact #129) you worthy of death” Gen. 2:17.

Next we will look at Genesis 2: 18 to 22.

Hebrew Without Vowels or Accents

The text of Genesis 2: 10 to 15 appears as follows:

Samaritan Targum Interlinear Translation

Here’s the interlinear translation of Genesis 2:10 to 15 from tanakh.info:

Facts About Hebrew

We can add the following to our facts about Hebrew:

89. The Hebrew Bible is a compilation of books which have been divided into chapters, paragraphs and sentences.  We previously learned that sentences end with a colon, that when followed by the Hebrew letter pe פ marks the end of a petuhah, like a paragraph in English (fact #8).  Similarly, the samekh ס indicates the end of a subsection.  In many cases, verses other than the first sentence of the chapter begin with the conjunction waw ו (see fact #9) representing its connection with the preceding verse.  The absence of a waw ו at the beginning of a sentence may indicate either the beginning of a new subsection, paragraph or chapter, or the continuance of a message from the previous verse,  or an interpolation.  Considering the inter-relationship between sentences that begin with waw ו and the pe and samekh markings, can help us spot improper chapter divisions and interpolations.

 Analysis of Gen. 1 – 3 reveals the following:

• In Gen. 1:1 – 2:3, all verses other than the first being with waw ו, indicating they are part of one chapter.   In Genesis 1, the pe פ paragraph marks occur at the end of each creation day, presenting each day as separate from the others, culminating with the seventh day in Gen. 2:3.

• Gen. 2:4 doesn’t begin with a waw ו, evidence that it is the first verse of the chapter.

• In Gen 2, verses 11 & 24 do not begin with waw ו, indicating they are either a continuation from the previous verse or an interpolation.  Gen. 2:11 is discussed in this article below, and Gen. 2:24 when we come to it in our study.

• After Gen 2:3, there are no pe פ marks until Gen 3:21, and Gen. 3:1 begins with a waw ו indicating it’s connection to the previous verse, and that Gen 2:4 – 3:21 are one paragraph.  Gen. 3:22 – 24 begin with a waw indicating they are connected to Gen. 3:21 and each other.  Gen. 3:24 ends with a samekh ס indicating the end of a subsection. 

90. The noun nahar נהר (Strong’s 5103 & 5104 15 & 119 occurrences) means ‘a stream, flood, river’ (including the sea), the same form as the verb nahar נהר (Strong’s 5102 6 occurrences) means ‘to flow, stream, be lightened’, figuratively ‘be cheerful’, translated in Psalm 34:5 & Isaiah 60:5 as ‘be radiant’, which may be evidence of mistranslations or interpolations.  For example, Isaiah 60 contains a prophesy for a glorified Zion, and in verse 5 “you will see and be radiant (nahar), and your heart will swell and rejoice because the abundance of the sea will be turned to you, the wealth of the nations will come to you”, which isn’t the hope of God’s people but Satan’s because the sea represents people under Satan’s influence.

Nahar is from the noun noah נה (Strong’s 5089 1 occurrence in Ezek. 7:11) that means ‘eminency, distinction’ as it is translated in NAS, but I believe ‘prosperity’ is more accurate, and the resh suffix on nahar incorporates an element of headship to eminency, distinction (see fact #91).  Although Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance states that noah means ‘wailing’ as it is translated in King James, this doesn’t fit with the context of Ezek. 7:11 “. . . none of them will remain, none of their multitude, none of their wealth, and none of their prosperity”. 

Other words based on noah are also said to mean ‘wail, lament’.  The verb nahah נהה (Strong’s 5091 3 occurrences), which is noah with the he suffix that means ‘toward’ (see fact #54 d) should result in the meaning ‘toward eminence’, Strong’s indicates the meaning to be ‘to wail, lament’.  Similarly, the noun nehi נהי (Strong’s 5092 7 occurrences), noah with a yod suffix changes the noun to the construct form ‘of’, which Strong’s indicates means ‘a wailing, a lamentation’.  The noun qinah קינה (Strong’s 7015 18 occurrences) (is this noah with a qoph and yod prefix?) that means ‘lamentation’, is said to be from qayin קינו (Strong’s 7013 1 occurrence) that means ‘a spear’, but perhaps they meant  qonen קון (Strong’s 6969 8 occurrences) that means ‘lament’ which is found in similar form יקנן, and in Ezek. 32:16 in the same form as qinah קינה .

Changes in the meaning of words may be evidence of different authorship, possibly at a different point in time.  In Genesis 23:2 Abraham mourned ספד (Strong’s 5594 32 occurrences) and wept/lamented בכה  and commonly in בך form (Strong’s 1058 116 occurrences) Sarah’s death.  These words keep the same meaning throughout the Hebrew Bible, but the meaning of noah, and words constructed from it, changed in isolated occurrences in 1 Sam. 7:2, 2 Sam. 1:17 (x2), 3:33, 21:16, 2 Chr. 35:25 (x3), Jer. 7:29, 9:10 (x2), 17, 18, 19, 20 (x2), 31:15 Ezek. 2:10, 19:1, 14 (x2), 26:17, 27:2, 32 (x2), 28:12, 32:2, 16 (x4), 18, Amos 5:1, 16, 8:10, Micah 2:4 (x2), many of which are attributed by scholars as Deuteronomistic, or scribal interpolations. 

Consider the following evidence against verses where noah means lamentation:

• In the book 1 & 2 Samuel by Robert P. Gordon he states, “Noth regarded 1 Samuel 7:2 – 8:22 and 12: 1 – 25 as thoroughly Deuteronomistic compositions” p.18.

• In his article David’s Lament and the Poetics of Grief in 2 Samuel, author Steven Weitzman  compares the mourning scenes in 2 Sam 1: 17 – 17 and 2 Sam 3: 33 – 34 “which attribute to David a ‘poetic’ lament and underscores the propriety of the king’s grief by reporting that David’s expression of it was well received by those who witnessed it.  This similarity is probably not a coincidence but reflects the similar rhetorical objective of these scenes.  Since David had connections with those directly involved in the deaths of Saul, Jonathan, and Abner (the Philistines and Joab) and had obviously benefited politically from their demise, he may very well have been a ‘suspect’ in the deaths of his political foes, as observed by J. Vanderkam among others.”

• In the book The Deuteronomistic History Hypothesis: A Reassessment, author Mark O’Brien states “while the evidence is not conclusive either way, my preference is to regard 2 Samuel 21 – 24 as a later addition (with McCarter, p. 17, cf. also Noth, The Deuteronomistic History, 124-25, n. 3).”

• In the book The Encyclopedia of Christianity Vol 3 it states that 2 Chr. 34 – 35 is a parallel account of 2 kings 22 – 23, “material strongly shaped by Deuteronomistic redaction” p.78.

• In the book By the Irrigation Canals of Babylon: Approaches to the Study of the Exile, the author states that Jer. 31: 15 – 22 is the sixth poem of the Book of Consolation recontextualized to describe the Babylonian Exile.  Rachel’s lament in v.15 is a pre-existing literary unit, one of the poem’s oldest strands p. 109.  This verse is found in Matthew 2:18, part of the redaction in Matthew 1:18 – 2:23, where it is said to be fulfilment of Jeremiah’s prophecy in Herod’s slaughter of all male children in Bethlehem two years old and under in v. 16 – 17.

• In the book Literary Precursors to the Book of the Twelve, author James Nogalski presents Bosshard’s observations on a series of inclusions that fashion Amos 1:1 – 9:6, which includes the occurrences of qinah in Amos 5:1 and 8:10 p. 78 – 79.

• In the book Judgement and Salvation: The Composition and Redaction of Micah 2 – 5, author Jan Wagenaar states “A Deuteronomistic revision of Micah 2 – 3 has been assumed by a considerable number of scholars.”, confirming that Renaud, Wolff and Otto attribute the revision of 2: 3 -4 to the Deuteronomistic editor p. 254.

• Verses  in Jer. 9 and Ezek. where noah mean ‘lament’ need to be investigated as possible interpolations.

91.  The letter resh ר in ancient Hebrew is pictorially represented by a man’s head.   Today, resh as an abbreviation can stand for Rabbi, may be found on a gravestone to indicate that a person had been a Rabbi, and is a generic term for a teacher or spiritual guide. 

• As a prefix, resh indicates the origin, beginning, starting point, for example the word bereshith ראשית (Strong’s 7225) that means ‘beginning, chief’ is from rosh ראש (Strong’s 7218) that means ‘head’.  There are 365 words that begin with resh, many of which contain elements of ‘beginning’ and/or ‘head’, such as rab/rob רב (Strong’s 7227, 7229, & 7230) that means ‘chief, great (many)’.  The word ra רע (Strong’s 7451) that means ‘evil’ begins with resh, found in Gen. 2:9 with towb טוב (Strong’s 2896) that means ‘good’, which was the beginning of evil, but since God is good it pre-existed evil.

• As a suffix, resh modifies the word noah נה that means ‘prosperity’, adding to it the element of ‘headship’, resulting in the meaning ‘eminence’.  For example, the ‘river’ נהר in the garden of Eden that represents ‘eminence’ that led mankind to sin.  In the word yatsar יצר (see fact #67) translated as ‘formed’, the resh suffix contains an element of a potter making an earthen vessel which is perishable, and is also translated as ‘distressed’.  Also, shagar/sheqer שקר (Strong’s 8266 & 8267) that mean ‘to deal falsely’ and ‘deception, falsehood’ respectively, from saq  שק (Strong’s 8242) that means ‘sackcloth’ which is worn in mourning and humiliation.

92.  The verb parad פרד (Strong’s 6504 26 occurrences) means ‘to divide, disperse, be out of joint, scatter abroad, separate/sever self’, from a primitive root that means ‘to break through, i.e. spread or separate (oneself)’.  The noun pered פרד (Strong’s 6505 14 occurrences), which is the same as parad except for the vowel points added by scribes, means ‘a mule’ (figuratively stubborn).  The noun pirdah פרדה (Strong’s 6506 3 occurrences) said to mean ‘a female mule’, but only occurs in 1 Kings 1: 32 to 40, text which shows evidence of being a Zadokite interpolation (see fact #86).  Parad with the he suffix indicates movement toward separation (see fact #54 d), which is the meaning in modern Hebrew.

93.   Esh אש (Strong’s 784 377 occurrences) means Yahweh’s fire, not literal fire as it is used in Ezek. 39: 9 & 10, evidence against the text being inspired.  In Ezek. 28:14, 16 & 18, the cherub who overshadows (cakak) become in heart of stones fire (esh), sinned and was cast from mountain of gods and destroyed from heart (tavek) stones (eben) fiery (esh), God brought fire (esh) from heart (tavek) that devoured and turned to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all.  In Ezek. 38: 19 & 22 Yahweh  will in jealousy, in fire (esh) of wrath declare in day be earthquake great in the land of Israel, and judgment, in pestilence and bloodshed and rain flooding and stones, hail, fire (esh) and brimstone rain down on him and his troops and on peoples, many lords with him.  Yahweh is a consuming fire, and those with impurities cannot stand before him without being turned to ashes, the mighty army who attacked Israel on the day of Yahweh Joel 2:5.

The resh ר prefix indicates ‘origin, beginning, starting point’, in conjunction with Yahweh’s fire אש (esh), forms  rosh ראש (Strong’s 7218 599 occurrences) that allegedly means ‘band, captain, company’, often translated as ‘head’ (385/599) or ‘top’ (69/599), or rosh ראש (Strong’s 7219 12 occurrences) ‘poison, venom’.  In Ezek. 38: 2 & 3 Gog (which means ‘burial’) is the prince (nasiy’) of rosh, translated as ‘heads, headwaters, rivers, or branches’ in Gen. 2:10, that means ‘head’ in the sense of ‘leaders, masters, or captains’, from an unused root that means ‘to shake’ whether literal or figurative.   In a larger sense, rosh are those whose heart (leb see fact #95) is lifted up, believing they are gods (el see fact #99) sitting in the dwelling place (moshab) of gods (elohim), but they are a man (adam) and not a God (el) Ezek. 28:2. 

The noun rishah ראשה  (Strong’s 7221 1 occurrence) allegedly means ‘beginning time, early time’, is found in Ezek. 36:11 with the taw suffix ראשת , verses which show signs of being an interpolation.   Similar to reshith  ראשית (Strong’s 7225 51 occurrences) that means ‘beginning, chief’, which indicates the beginning of Satan’s rebellion, the reason why the earth was ‘confusion and waste’ in Gen. 1:2.  The noun roshah  ראשה (Strong’s 7222 1 occurrence) means ‘top’, but occurs only in Zech. 4:7 where it means ‘headstone’, Zech. 4: 6 – 10 is thought to be a ‘temple’ interpolation. 

94. The noun shem,שמ singular and שם plural (Strong’s 8034 864 occurrences) means ‘a name’.  According to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (SEC) it means ‘base, infamous, renown’, evidencing a ‘name’ results from actions, “a primitive word (perhaps rather from sum/sim through the idea of definite and conspicuous position; compare shamayim)”, which is found in the same singular form as shem (Shamayim  שמ  Strong’s 8064 421 occurrences) but means ‘heaven, sky’, that SEC states is “from an unused root meaning to be lofty”, evidencing the ‘conspicuous position’ is likely above others.  The verb sum or sim שום (Strong’s 7760 583 occurrences) that means ‘appoint, call a name, change’ is often found in the same form as shem (see fact #75). 

The aleph prefix indicates 1^st person, singular, future tense, that with shem/sham forms the verb/noun/adjective asham/ashem  אשם (Strong’s 816, 817 & 818 with 35, 46 & 3 occurrences), changing it from plural to singular meaning ‘he/she becomes guilty/do wrong’ as translated in Lev. 4:22.  The plural form אשמו (in Lev. 4:13), according to R’ Yaakov Tzvi Meklenburg, in his commentary Hak’sav V’hakabbala, “the מו form is actually a contraction of the plural (with מ) and singular (with ו) third person.”  The מת suffix changes it to 2^nd person, for example אשמת in Ezek. 22:4 that means ‘you become guilty’.  This also supports that shem/sham are associated with actions, doing wrong in particular.

The adverb sham שם (Strong’s 8033 833 occurrences) is the same as shem, and sum/sim , allegedly means ‘there, where’ (see fact #76).  Looking again at Gen. 2:8 where both of these words are found, we see that, although sum/sim  וישם is translated as ‘put’ or ‘placed’ in most Bible’s, the prefix yod indicates third person, future tense, and in this occurrence is plural, meaning ‘they/them’, so ‘appointed them’ best captures the meaning.  In addition, although sham שם is often translated as ‘there’, it is referring specifically to the garden in Eden where God ‘appointed them’, so ‘appointed place’ best captures the meaning. 

95.  Laban לבן (Strong’s 3835 & 3836 8 and 29 occurrences) mean ‘to make white’ and ‘white’.  Where it is translated as ‘make/making brick’ in Gen. 11:3 and Exodus 5:14, are likely interpolations.  The root leb לב (Strong’s 3820 593 occurrences) means ‘heart’, as does libbah לבה (Strong’s 3826 8 occurrences).  Also, lebab לבב (Strong’s 3824 252 occurrences) means ‘heart, inner man, mind, will’.

Laban is the root of  Lebanon לבנון (Strong’s 3844 71 occurrences), that in many cases, has a he prefix, which is translated as ‘of Lebanon’ or a beth prefix which is translated as ‘in Lebanon’.   Lebanon is often found in conjunction with trees, cedar in particular, another name for the garden of Eden in Ezekiel 31: 3, 15 & 16, the place where mankind are refined and made white.

Laban with a he suffix forms labanah לבנה (Strong’s 3843 11 occurrences) that should mean movement toward whiteness, but allegedly means ‘brick, tile’ as it is translated in all 11 occurrences.  Most occurrences are used of literal brick, likely interpolations, but in Isa. 9:10 it is leban in plural form לבנים not labanah;  “And will know the people all Ephraim and inhabitants Samaria in pride and arrogance of heart to say ‘To make white stones (laban) fall , and hewn stone establish, sycamore (shiqmah שקמ Strong’s 8256 7 occurrences) cut down and cedar replace (chalaph Strong’s 2498)’ and raised up Yahweh adversaries firm upon him and his enemies cover”.   Laban contains an element of stone as indicated by the contrast with hewn stone, making ‘white stones’ an appropriate choice in this verse.

Lebonah לבונה (Strong’s 3828 21 occurrences) means  ‘frankincense, incense’, often found in the same form as labanah לבנה likely evidence of uninspired text.

96.  The noun pishon פישון (Strong’s 6376 1 occurrence) from the verb puwsh פשו (Strong’s 6335 4 occurrences) that probably means ‘to spring about’, from a primitive root (similar to pasah פשה Strong’s 6581 22 occurrences in Leviticus that means ‘to spread’ used of an infection) that means ‘to spread, grow up, be grown fat, spread selves, be scattered’, or  figuratively ‘act proudly’.  Perhaps a form of pashach פשח (Strong’s 6582) that means ‘pull/tear in pieces’ indicating spreading in a violent way.

Yet none of these words has a yod in the middle, begging the question how does the yod modify the meaning of the word?  As a prefix yod indicates third person, future tense, ‘they will’, and as a suffix indicates first person, singular, possessive.  One example is esh אש (Strong’s 784) that means fire/existence (there), with a yod in the middle becomes ish איש (Strong’s 376) that means ‘mighty one’ (see fact #56 – an ish is not a godly person but a fallen one).  Another example is el אל (Strong’s 410) that means god/power, with a yod in the middle becomes ayil איל (Strong’s 352) that means ‘a ram, mighty man, oak, tree’.  If this theory is correct, pishon indicates a corrupt way of spreading out, perhaps like an infection similar to how pasah is used above.

97.  The noun chavilah חוילה (Strong’s 2341 7 occurrences) is the name of a son of Cush, also Joktan, also land of uncertain whereabouts, but the evidence is weak, appearing in the same list of names in Gen. 10:29 and 1 Chr. 1:23, and Gen. 10:7 and 1 Chr. 1:9, with only Gen. 25:18 “Ishmael’s descendants settled from Havilah to Shur, which is near the border of Egypt as you go toward Ashur” and 1 Sam. 15:7 “Saul struck down the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, which is east of Egypt”, to substantiate Havilah and Shur as places. 

According to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance chavilah is ‘probably from chuwl’ חול Strong’s 2342 60 occurrences that means ‘bear (painfully in the sense of a woman in labor), drive away, fall grievously/writhe with pain’.  In the same form chol חול (Strong’s 2344 23 occurrences) means ‘sand’ but often in the sense of numerous/great/abundance “as the sands upon the sea” Gen. 22:17, 32:12, 41:49, Joshua 11:4, Judges 7:12, 1 Sam. 13:5, 2 Sam. 17:11, 1 Kings 4:20 & 29, Isaiah 10:22, 48:19, Jer. 15:8, 33:22, Hosea 1:10  & Hab. 1:9.

As we discovered in fact #96, the yod in the middle may indicate a corruption in bearing offspring, or becoming numerous/great/abundant.  Today, in the form חויל means ‘mobilize’, found in Gen. 2:11 with a he prefix can function as a definite article, or indicate a question (see fact #53 d), and a he suffix indicating movement toward, modifying the meaning to ‘the mobilization’.  

98.  The noun saq שק (Strong’s 8242 48 occurrences) means ‘sack, sackcloth’ often worn in mourning or humiliation, from the verb shaqaq שקק (Strong’s 8264 6 occurrences) meaning ‘to have appetite, long, range, run to and fro’, from a primitive root that means ‘to course (like a beast of prey); by implication, to seek greedily – have appetite’.   Saq שק is the root of shaqah שקה (Strong’s 8248 see fact #66) that literally means ‘cause to drink/irrigate’, and figuratively ‘toward mourning/humiliation’, tied together when used of getting someone drunk/causing to drink which leads to humiliation.    

In Gen 2:10 shaqah השקות  is saq שק with a he prefix indicating ‘the’ definite object (see fact #53 d), and the suffix final nun and taw indicating plural, the same form found in Ezek 17:7 translated as ‘that he might water’.  The use of shaqah in a positive context, such as Isaiah 27:3 & 43:20 (see Fact #124) and Joel 3:18 (see fact #85), is evidence of an interpolation. 

99.  The preposition/conjunction al על (Strong’s 5920, 5921, & 5922 occurring 4, 5778, and 94 times respectively) means ‘above, according to, after, as against (always with a downward aspect), among’, often translated as ‘against’ or ‘over’.  It is an error to translate al as ‘Most High’, presenting it as a proper name for Yahweh, as is done in Hosea 7:16 & 11:7 of the King James, NIV, NLT and Berean Study Bibles, or as ‘Baal’ as is done in the NET Bible.  Al is the same as the noun ol על (Strong’s 5923 40 occurrences) that allegedly means ‘a yoke’, but appears only in questionable text.

Al is the root of the verb alah עלה (Strong’s 5927 888 occurrences) that means ‘arise up, cause to ascend up, cause to burn’, the noun olah עלה (Strong’s 5930  289 occurrences and 5928 1 occurrence in Ezra) means ‘burnt offering’.   The he suffix on al means ‘toward’ (see fact #54 d), so alah means ‘toward  rising up/burning’, not seeking God, but wanting to be God which is why it means ‘arise up’ in the sense of an uprising, hence ‘cause to ascend up, cause to burn’.  In the same form the noun aleh עלה  (Strong’s 5929 18 occurrences) allegedly means ‘leaf, leafage’, likely uninspired text even Gen. 3:7 which also changes the meaning of naked and covering from figurative to literal.

Joel 1 prophesies “a people rising up (alah) upon (al) my land, numerous not few,  v. 6, destroying Yahweh’s vine and stripping Yahweh’s fig trees leaving them bare v. 7, and Israel  ‘wails like a virgin dressed in sackcloth, grieving for, mourns because the grain and drink offerings are withheld from the house of ‘your God’ v. 13, when the day of Yahweh comes as destruction from the Almighty v. 15.

The noun t’alah תעלה (Strong’s 8585 11 occurrences) alleged to mean ‘watercourse, trench’ is alah/olah/aleh with the prefix taw ת that indicates either third person, singular, future tense (he/she/you/they will), or second person future tense (you will), or in biblical Hebrew, third person, plural, future tense (they will) (see fact #53 e), so ‘you will ascend/rise up’ or ‘they will ascend/rise up’.   In Genesis 2:6, the ‘vapour arose t’alah from the earth’ is associated with fire, given that t’alah is from alah that means ‘cause to burn’.  In Ezek 31:4 Assyria the cedar ‘rivulets/uprising/burning t’alah put forth to all the trees of the field’, but in Isaiah 7:3 & 36:2 where it is translated as ‘conduit’ is evidence against the text.

Similar to al על, el אל (Strong’s 410 248 occurrences) relates to being ‘high, over, above’ but the aleph prefix modifies nouns to 1^st person, singular, future tense, personifying lamed ל to mean ‘mighty one, idol’, which is used of any deity including Yahweh, from ayil איל (Strong’s 352 183 occurrences) that means ‘mighty man, oak, tree, ram’.  With the he suffix (see fact #54d) should mean ‘toward might/power’, but alah אלה (Strong’s 422 & 423 6 & 36 occurrences) is said to mean ‘curse, swear, oath’, or as a verb (Strong’s 421 1 occurrence) ‘wail, lament’. 

The pronoun el אל (Strong’s 411 & 412 9 & 1 occurrences) said to mean ‘these, those’, and preposition el (Strong’s 413 5504 occurrences) said to mean ‘to, into, towards’ that we questioned the meaning of in fact #18, must contain some element of might/strength also.  The prefix lamed ל is attached to many words, for example in Gen 1:5, light לאור, darkness לחשך, night לילה, where it simply means ‘to’.  In Gen. 1:9 we find the first occurrence of el, lamed with the aleph prefix, “And said gods gather together the waters under the heavens into [el] place alone/separate”, thus by God’s power.  In Gen 2:22 “. . . woman and go to [el] the man (adam)”, by the woman’s power.   Then in Gen. 3:1 – 3:4 el is used of the serpent saying to (el)  the woman, then the woman saying to [el] the serpent and vise versa, possibly indicating the attempt to exert power over each other.

The verb alah אלה (Strong’s 422 & 423 6 & 36 occurrences) means an imprecation, a spoken ‘swear, oath, curse’.  The he prefix (see fact #54d) should modify el to future tense, normally ‘toward’ but in this case perhaps a future promise in the form of an oath or covenant that contains an element of might or power.   For example, Dan. 9:11 refers to “the oath [alah]  . . . written in the Law”, an imprecation of God, or in Ezek. 17:12 & 13 “the king of Babylon . . . took one of the royal family and made a covenant [alah] with him”, an imprecation of the king of Babylon.  Similar to el, the exercise of power can be God’s or someone else, but it is an imprecation of might/power.

Baal בעל (Strong’s 1166 15 occurrences, and 1167 84 occurrences) mean ‘rule over’ and ‘owner, lord’ respectively.  Baal is used to describe males rule over females in marriage in Gen 20:3, Exodus 21:3 & 22, Deut. 22:22 & 24:1 & 4, Proverbs 30:23, Isaiah 54:1 & 5, the ‘owner’ of an ox in Exodus 21: 28 & 29, and Isaiah 1:3, and the ‘lords’ of the nations in Isa. 16:8.  Baal is mistranslated in Isa. 41:15, the context is Yahweh declaring “I will make you into a threshing sledge, new and sharp, with (baal) many teeth, you thresh the mountains and crush them, and reduce the hills to chaff”, evidence against the text being inspired, and in Isa. 50:8 many words are mistranslated, turning the meaning of the sentence up side down, also evidence of uninspired text.  Text where Yahweh is referred to as baal, as Israel’s ‘master’ (baal) in Jer. 3:14 & 31:32, and as the ‘owner/lord’ (baal) of Israel’s youth in Joel 1:8, show evidence of being interpolations.    There are other Hebrew words mistranslated within these verses, which we will look in a separate article. 

100. The verb mul מול  (Strong’s 4135 36 occurrences) allegedly means ‘circumcise’ is often found in the form מל which is the root of melek/malak.  The verb namal  נמל (Strong’s 5243 5 occurrences – 4 in מל  form) allegedly means ‘be cut down, circumcise’.  In Deut. 10:6 & 30:6, and Jer. 4:4, mul is found in the phrase  ‘circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer’ Deut. 10:6, “circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love Yahweh your god with all your heart and with all your soul so that you may live” Deut. 30:6, and “circumcise yourselves to Yahweh and remove the foreskins of your heart” in Jer. 4:4, evidencing the meaning is ‘haughty, arrogant’ or ruling over others, and a ‘cutting down’ Psalm 58:7, 90:6, & 118:10, 11 & 12 is necessary . 

Text that refers to a literal circumcision are suspected to be uninspired, in Gen. 17 Yahweh appeared to Abraham which is not possible, in Gen. 34 the tale of Dinah and Shechem,  the language of Joshua is difficult – jumping from circumcising ‘the sons’ of Israel v3, to explaining why only those born in the wilderness had not been circumcised v5, the sons (ben translated as ‘children’), to circumcising ‘all the nation’ v8, and Job is ‘strange text’ that shows no evidence of being inspired.  Other text is suspect as well, the circumcision of John ‘the Baptist’ in Luke 1:59, the ‘covenant of circumcision’ in Acts 7:8, and Paul circumcising his assistant in Acts 16:3 when the opposite is stated in Acts 21:21.

Location	# occ	מול   form	מל  form	נמל  form
Genesis 17	11	6 – v. 10, 12, 13 x 2, 14, & 26	4 – v. 23, 24, 25 & 27	1 – v. 11
Genesis 21	1		1 – v. 4
Genesis 34	5	2 – v. 17, 22	3 – v. 15, 22, & 24
Exodus 12	2	1 – v. 48	1 – v. 44
Leviticus 12	1	1 – v. 3
Deut 10 & 30 ‘circumcise your heart’	2		2 – 10:6, 30:6
Joshua 5	8	1 – v. 8	7 – v. 2, 3, 4, 5 x 2, 7 x 2
Job 14:2, 18:16, 24:24 ‘cut down’	3		3 – 14:2, 18:16, 24:24
Psalm 37 ‘cut down’	1		1 – v. 2
Psalm 58 ‘shafts’	1		1 – v. 7
Psalm 90 ‘cut down’	1	1 – v. 6
Psalm 118 ‘cut them off’	3		3 – 10, 11, 12
Jer 4:4 & 9:25 ‘foreskins of your heart’	2	1 – 9:25	1 – 4:4

The noun melek מלך (Strong’s 4428 2523 occurrences), the kap ך suffix being pronominal, second person, possessive , adds ‘your’, thus ‘your king’, when found in the form מלכ singular or מלכים plural, is translated as ‘king(s)’ generally.  The same as the verb malak מלך (Strong’s 4427 348 occurrences) allegedly means ‘king, reign, rule’, and molek מלך (Strong’s 4432 9 occurrences) that means ‘foreign god’.  The root mul supports the meaning ‘rule over’, that when used of a person, a king or foreign god, indicates they ‘haughty, arrogant’ and need to be ‘cut down’, whose followers are worshipping another god as a result.  The reign of Yahweh or His Annointed One are the only legitimate authority, supported by the fact that when Israel demanded a king, Yahweh said to Samuel “Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they have say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from reigning (malak) over them” 1 Sam. 8:7.

The words mala/mela/male/melo מלא (Strong’s 4390, 4391, 4392, & 4393 253, 2, 55 & 38 occurrences) that mean ‘to be full, to fill, fullness’, mul with the aleph suffix forms indicates 1^st person, singular, future tense, pointing to a time in the future when the earth is ‘full’ of Yahweh’s glory because he is ruling Isa. 6:3.  In the Genesis creation account, on the fifth day (armed for battle) god said “fill (male) the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth” in Gen. 1:20 – 23, and on the sixth day (make white) “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air . . .” in Gen. 1:26 – 31, moving towards the day when Yahweh rules over all the creation.

Mala/mela/male/melo with the kap ך suffix (pronominal, second person, possessive) forms malak  מלאך (Strong’s 4397 213 occurrences) alleged to mean ‘messenger’ translated as ‘angel’, must mean ‘your fullness’, and with a kap yod suffix  מלאכי means ‘my fullness’, in respect of the message they deliver being of the ‘fullness’ of time, completion, the wrapping up of temporal things.  Like in Zech. 3: 1 – 7, Joshua the high priest stood before the angel (malak) of Yahweh and Satan at his right hand to accuse him, and Yahweh said to Satan “Yahweh rebuke you Satan!  Indeed Yahweh who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire (esh)?”  Joshua was clothed with  filthy garments and standing before the angel (malak).  He spoke and said to those standing before him, saying “Remove the filthy garments from him”, again he said to him “See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes”.  Then I said “Let them put a clean turban on his head”, so they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments, while the angel (malak) of Yahweh was standing by.  And the angel (malak) of Yahweh admonished Joshua, saying “Thus says Yahweh of armies ‘If you will walk in my ways and if you will perform my service then you will also govern my house and also have charge of my courts and I will grant you free access among these who take a stand”.

101. In Amos 5:26 the name of their heathen god (molek see fact #100) was Sikkuth סכות (Strong’s 5522 1 occurrence) referred to in Acts 7:43 as “the tabernacle of Molech and the star of your god Rephan, the idols you made to worship.”  Likely connected to sukkah סכה, often found in the form סכת (Strong’s 5521 31 occurrences) that means ‘thicket, booth’, strangely used of a feast in Lev. 23:34, Deut. 16:13, 16 31: 10, 2 Chr. 8:13, & Ezra 3:4.  From cakak סכך (Strong’s 5526 24 occurrences) that means ‘to overshadow, screen cover’ in the sense of ‘guarding, protecting’, the kap ך suffix being pronominal, second person, possessive , adds ‘your’, translated as ‘guardian’ by ESV, NLT & NIV in Ezek. 28: 14 & 16 of the cherub who was in Eden but sinned and was cast from the mountain of gods.  In Nahum 2:5 of the nobles ‘protective shield, defense’, used of God in Lam 3: 43 & 44 may be evidence these verses are not inspired.

102. The verb sabab סבב (Strong’s 5437 157 occurrences) means ‘to turn about, go around, surround’ from a primitive root used in a variety of ways, figuratively ‘bring, cast, fetch, lead, make, walk, be about on every side, besiege, etc.’.  The root of the noun sabib/sebibah  סביב (Strong’s 5439 335 occurrences) that means ‘place, round about, circuit, compass, on every side’.  When found in its basic form, for example in Ezek. 42:19 it is translated as ‘turning’, or in 2 Sam. 14:20 ‘to change’.  In Gen 2:11, sabab, הסבב  has a he prefix, which is either a definite article that indicates a specific person, place or thing is being referred to, or interrogative indicating a question (see fact #53 d), meaning ‘he/she/it surrounds’. 

In Gen 2:13 a different form of sabab הסובב is found with the he prefix, and a waw ו in the middle, similar in form to the occurrences in Ps. 55:10 and Ps. 59: 6 & 14 which is translated ‘go around’ in the context of an invasion, and Jer. 31:22 where it is translated as ‘encompass’ which is possible but in the sense of an invasion.  The dictionary on Morfix indicates the colloquial meaning is “to wrap, to bind’, or ‘to twist (words)’ https://www.morfix.co.il/en/%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%91%D7%91

103. The noun zahab זהב (Strong’s 2091 389 occurrences) means ‘gold’, used of the precious metal gold, often found in conjunction with silver (keseph  כסף  Strong’s 3701 403 occurrences).   For example, in Ezek. 28:4, “In your wisdom, in your understanding, make to yourself riches/wealth, make gold (zahab) and silver (keseph) in your treasuries”, and in Isa. 30:22, “and defile covering molded images silver (keseph) and ephod molded images your gold (zahab) cast away like unwell , ‘get away’, say to them”.  In inspired text, ‘gold’ is a perishable thing coveted by mankind, used in creating idols they worship.

Possibly from the same root, to the noun zohar זהר (Strong’s 2096 2 occurrences) means ‘brightness, the resh suffix indicating an element of headship to the ‘brightness’, from the verb zahar זהר  (Strong’s 2094 22 occurrences), 8 in Ezek. 3: 17 – 21 and 8 in Ezek. 33: 3 – 9 where it is translated as ‘warn’ appear to be interpolations.  Both are found in Dan. 12:3 “those who are wise shall shine (zahar) like the brightness (zohar) of the firmament . . . “.  The authority these wise people have is described in Rev. 20: 4 “I saw thrones and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them.  And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Yahshua and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshipped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with the Messiah for a thousand years.”

Zeh זה (Strong’s 2088 & 2090 1177 & 12 occurrences) are often translated as ‘this’, but in Zech 3:2 Yahweh “ . . . the elect Jerusalem is not this (zeh) firebrand delivered from fire”, could contain an element of ‘bright’, in reference to the ‘elect’.  The same form זה (Strong’s 2089) means ‘lamb’, thought to be a typographical error for seh שה (Strong’s 7716 47 occurrences), although ‘lamb’ and ‘brightness’ are connected by righteousness.  In plural form zaham זהם (Strong’s 2092 1 occurrence) is a verb that means ‘to be foul, loathsome’, or a proper name (Strong’s 2093 1 occurrences) that means ‘loathing’, neither well supported. 

104. The noun bedolach בדלח (Strong’s 916 2 occurrences) is badal בדל (Strong’s 914 & 915 42 & 1 occurrence) that means ‘to be divided, separate’ or ‘a piece, severed piece’, in Gen 1:4 God ‘separated’ (יבדל badal) between the light and between the darkness.  With a yod in the middle form bedil  (Strong’s 913 6 occurrences) that means ‘alloy, tin, dross’, the yod indicating a damaged piece, so in the form badal may be the opposite ‘gold’.  (The heth suffix throws a kink into it because there is no mention of it being a suffix so the effect is unknown.)

105. The noun ben בן singular, בנים plural (Strong’s 1121 & 1123 4932 & 11 occurrences) means ‘afflicted, appointed one, arrow’ although predominantly translated as ‘son(s)’, with the he suffix forms banah בנה (Strong’s 1129 375 occurrences) that means ‘build, obtain children, make, repair, set up’.  Many occurrences of banah are in the form ben but translated as ‘build, built’ not ‘child, children’.  For example in Gen. 2:22 ben is translated as ‘fashioned’, to cover up the fact that the woman was God’s ‘appointed one’.  The ‘building’ of banah  בנה (Strong’s 1129 375 occurrences) may be connect to the ‘white, brick’ of laban (see fact #95).

Ben בנ with the prefix aleph forms the noun eben אבנ (also occurs in singular form אבן) (Strong’s 68 & 69 273 & 8 occurrences) that means ‘to build, a stone, diverse weights’ and is mostly translated as ‘a stone(s)’, but  ‘he/she/it will be a stone(s)’  better captures the 1^st person, future tense of the aleph prefix.  In Gen. 2:12 eben is in singular form אבן, and means ‘she will be a stone’, connected to the ‘woman [ishshah]’ Yahweh built in Gen. 2:22.

Ben is often translated as ‘son(s)’, and it’s counterpart, the noun bath בת (Strong’s 1323 589 occurrences) means ‘apple of the eye, branch, company, daughter, first, old, owl, town’ but is almost always translated as ‘daughter’, to make it appear Yahweh prefers males more than females.  Bath with the he suffix forms bathah בתה (Strong’s 1326 & 1327 1 & 1 occurrence) that mean ‘waste, end, destruction’ in Isaiah 5:6 and ‘desolate’ in Isaiah 7:19 respectively.

Having rejected the genderization alleged to exist in Hebrew (see fact #13), I believe that ben includes females and bath has something to do with destruction, and desolation.  For example, in Gen. 17:17 הבת is translated as “who is old” (consider that old represents decaying, wasting away, or being worn out) in reference to Sarah being 90, beyond the age of childbearing. 

Many occurrences of bath הב are in the form of ben בנות with a waw taw suffix, indicates plural construct, translated ‘daughters’.   Looking at the occurrences of this form of ben, which is already in plural form בנ, the taw suffix adds ‘of’ to the noun (see fact #54 g), and the waw suffix indicates third person, possessive meaning ‘his/hers, they/them, its’ (see fact #54 d).  Looking at the first occurrence in Gen. 5:4 “Seth eight hundred years and begat sons and of them sons”, and this translation applies to all the genealogical verses in Gen. 5:4 – 6:4 (12 occurrences), Gen. 11: 11 – 29 (9 occurrences), and Gen. 19: 8 – 36 ( 8 occurrences).   

Outside of Genesis, the context that bath and ben with the waw taw suffix are used in support translation as ‘desolate’ and ‘son of sons’ respectively.  Where the context supports  bath meaning ‘daughter’, or ben with the waw taw suffix meaning ‘daughters’  is evidence of an interpolation.  For example:

• In Gen. 20:12 where Abraham is explaining that Sarah is his sister, the daughter of his father, not the daughter of his mother, added to support intermarriage from Abraham’s generation.
• Text was added in Gen. 24: 15 – 67, & 25:19 – 24 to provide Isaac’s wife  Rebekah’s lineage, and in Gen. 29: 6 – 30:43 Jacob’s wife’s Leah and Rachel’s lineage, which link with the interpolation in Gen. 11: 27 – 32, and in Gen 26:34 – 35, & 28:9 to provide Esau’s marriage to outsiders as an example why intermarriage was necessary.  
• Judah marrying the daughter of a Canaanite in Gen 38:2 – 12, the account of Joseph marrying the daughter of Potiphea, priest of On in Gen. 41:45 – 50, and the account of Dinah, Jacob’s daughter by Leah was interpolated into Genesis 30:21, 34: 1 – 26, & 46:15 (See fact #87).
• In Joel 2:28 the prophecy should read “and prophecy your sons [ben בניכם] and your son’s sons [ben  בנותיכם ], your elders dream dreams, your young visions see”, not ‘your sons and your daughters’ which makes it appear ben refers to male offspring when it is gender neutral.  This prophecy is also misquoted in Acts 2:17.

The Talmud takes the genderization of ben as male and uses it as the foundation to prohibit woman from learning or teaching scripture!  In Kiddusin 29b of the Talmud it states “The baraita teaches that a father is obligated to teach his son Torah”, since a woman is not obligated to learn Torah, she is likewise not obligated to teach it”, “‘And you shall teach them to your sons’ (Deuteronomy 11:19), which emphasizes: Your sons and not your daughters.”  All Bible versions translate ben as ‘children’ in Deut. 11:19.

106. The noun shoham שהם (Strong’s 7718 11 occurrences) they guess probably means ‘onyx’, maybe from an unused root that means ‘to blanch’.  The same form as seh שה (Strong’s 7716 47 occurrences) that means ‘one of a flock, a sheep’, in plural form as it is found in Gen. 2:12 means ‘the flock’.

107. The noun gichon גיחון (Strong’s 1521 6 occurrences) is a proper name that means ‘a bursting forth’ from the verb giach  גיח (Strong’s 1518 6 occurrences) that means ‘break forth, labor to bring forth, come forth, draw up, take out’ from a primitive root that means ‘to gush forth’.  Similar to giach in the form גיחן (Strong’s 1519 1 occurrence) that is translated as ‘stirring’ the sea in Dan. 7:2.  In Ezek 32:2 Pharaoh is likened to a monster in sea and ‘bursting forth’ (giach גיח Strong’s 1518), which in Gen 2:13 is the river ‘Gihon’ (gichon גיחון Strong’s 1521).  The yod in the middle indicates a negative form of ‘bringing forth’, perhaps explaining the word ‘gushing’ conjuring images of an overwhelming flood.

108. The noun kuwsh כוש (Strong’s 3568 30 occurrences) a proper name ‘Cush’, a son of Ham who was ‘mighty’ (gibbor) became the father of Nimrod the founder of Babylon Gen 10: 8 & 9.  According to Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, in Genesis 10:8 = 1 Chronicles 1:10 כוש is error for כש = Babylonian Kassu, according to Schr^COT on Genesis 10:6, Dl^{Pa 51 ff. 72 f.} and most Assyriologists; so perhaps also Genesis 2:13. 

The verb kasah כשה (Strong’s 3780 1 occurrence) that means ‘to be sated or gorged (with food) is found in the form כשית in Deut 32:15, from a primitive root that means ‘grow fat’ (i.e. be covered with flesh) – be covered.

109. The noun Chiddeqel חדקל (Strong’s 2313 2 occurrences), the name of a river, translated as Tigris in NASB and Hiddekel in the King James.  In Genesis 2:14 the Samaritan Targum contains ‘Qiplusah’ קפלוסהinstead of ‘Hiddegel’ חדקל, and the Targum Onkelos contains ‘Digelat’ דִּיגְלָת perhaps evidence of this name being a later addition. 

The second occurrence of Chiddeqel is found in Dan. 10:4 which also has inconsistencies in the river name, the LXX translates Hiddekel by its Greek name Tigris, but in the Peshitta it is Euphrates which makes sense since the setting of Daniel is in Babylon which is on the Euphrates river.  Other evidence against Daniel 10:4 is ‘the four and twentieth day of the month’ is the Passover feast which Daniel would have partaken in, being a devout man (see the Pulpit Commentary on these verses), yet he is indicated to be fasting. 

This is evidence that both occurrences of Chiddeqel are likely interpolations from the same source, perhaps the P, R, or D redactor (see fact #89).

110. The verb halak הלך (Strong’s 1980 1549 occurrences) means ‘to go, come, walk’ also translated as went 309 times.  In Gen 2:14 halak is prefixed with he, being either a definite article (either ‘the’, or in reference to something known or spoken of previously) or indicating interrogative (see fact #53 d), and the suffix kap ך indicates pronominal possessive, translated in Gen 13:5 as ‘who went’, and in Deut 20:4 as ‘the one who goes’. 

111. The noun ashshuwr אשור (Strong’s 804 151 occurrences) translated as the proper name Assyria, possibly a name based on the noun shor שור (Strong’s 7794) that means ‘bullock, cow, or ox’ with the prefix aleph indicating 1^st person future tense.  Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance states the proper name Ashshuwr  is “apparently from ashar (in the sense of successful)” but there is little support for ashar meaning ‘happy’ (see fact #119), since Assyria is described in Ezekiel 31 as a haughty (rum), wicked (resha) overlord.

112. The pronoun hu or hi  הוא  (Strong’s 1931 1877 occurrences) means ‘he, she, it’, translated as ‘that’ in Gen 2:12. 

113. The noun qidmah קדמת (Strong’s 6926 4 occurrences) is alleged to be the feminine of qedem/qodam קדם (Strong’s 6924/5 – 87/42 occurrences)  (see fact #74) similarly meaning ‘front, east’.  Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon indicates the occurrences in Gen 2:14 and 4:16 mean ‘in front of, over against’.  Other possible meanings of qadam קדם include ‘flee before, disappoint, prevent’.

114. The noun perath פרת (Strong’s 6578 19 occurrences) is translated as ‘Euphrates’ in most Bible versions, as it is in the Septuagint, and translated as ‘Pherat’ in the Masoretic and Targum’s.  Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance indicates it is from an unused root meaning to break forth; rushing but there is no evidence to support this claim.

There are a few possible meaning of perath:

• It may be par פר (Strong’s 6499 133 occurrences) that means ‘bull, ox’, with the taw suffix which adds ‘of’ to a noun, resulting in the meaning ‘ox of’ which doesn’t fit with the context of being the proper name of a river name.
• It could be the verb parah פנה (Strong’s 6509 29 occurrences found in a variety of forms) that means ‘bear, bring forth fruit, grow, increase’ with a taw ת suffix instead of he ה which changes the noun to the construct form ‘of’ meaning ‘fruit of’ which doesn’t fit with it being the proper name of a river.
• It could be the noun parah פרה (Strong’s 6510) that means ‘cow’, that in the singular construct state means ‘cow of’, which doesn’t fit with it being the proper name of a river.
• It may be a form of parach פרח  (Strong’s 6524 36 occurrences) , or perach פרח (Strong’s 6525 17 occurrences) that mean ‘blossom, bud, grow’, but why this variant?

Close inspection of the 19 occurrences reveals they may have been added to the text by the same redactor.  The first occurrence in Gen. 2:14 perath appears to be included only to complete the list of four rivers, 10 occurrences are in Deuteronomy 1:7 & 11:24, Jer. 13: 4, 5, 6, & 7, Jer. 46: 2, 6, & 10, & 51:63 which many scholars believe have the same author, or group of authors because of the similarity in words and phrases, and Joshua 1:4 contains the same phrase “the great river, the river Euphrates” as found in Gen 15:18 and Deut 1:7.  In 2 Sam. 8:3 perath is in brackets indicating it wasn’t in the original text, and  2 Kings 23:29 & 24:7  are the same account found in Jer. 46:2.  This is likely the work of the Deuteronomist who added names throughout the Hebrew Bible to solidify his version of events.

What’s more, Euphrates has been added to the English translation of 10 verses with or instead of ‘river’ (see fact #90) in many Bible versions except the King James.  Euphrates was added to Isaiah 7:20, 8:7 and 27:12, and Micah 7:12 leaving no valid occurrences in Isaiah or Micah.  Euphrates has been added to the English translation found in Gen. 31:21 & 36:37, and Exodus 23:31.  There clearly has been an attempt to make it appear that the Euphrates was a river in Eden, and that it was part of Abraham and Israel’s promised land.

115. The verb laqach לקח (Strong’s 3947 965 occurrences) allegedly means ‘accept, bring, buy, carry away, drawn, fetch, get, infold’ but more likely ‘take, snatch, take away’, from a primitive root that also means ‘seize, take (away)’, the same as the noun leqach לקח (Strong’s 3948 9 occurrences) that means ‘instruction, learning, teaching’, which Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance indicates is the meaning of laqach also.

116. The verb yanach ינח (Strong’s 3240 75 occurrences) means ‘bestow, cast down, up, leave off, let alone, pacify, place’, from a primitive root used in a variety of applications, literal and figurative, causative (to dwell, stay, let fall, place, let alone, withdraw, etc.), found often with a yod in the middle instead of the start.  Both Strong’s Exhaustive and NAS Exhaustive Concordance indicate yanach is the same as nuach נוח (Strong’s 5117 67 occurrences) but that seems unlikely given the different form and the meaning, ‘cease, be confederate, lay, let down, be quiet, remain, cause to, be at’.

Yanach is similar to the verb yanah ינה (Strong’s 3238 19 occurrences) which has a he ה instead of a heth ח suffix, and means ‘destroy, thrust out by oppressing proud, vex, do violence’, from a primitive root that means ‘to rage, be violent, to suppress, to maltreat – destroy, (thrust out by) oppress (ing, ion, or), proud, vex, do violence’.  The claim that yanah is the source of the noun naveh נוה (Strong’s 5116 35 occurrences) seems unlikely given the different form and meaning, ‘comely, dwelling place, fold, habitation, pleasant place’, from the verb navah (Strong’s 5115 2 occurrences) that means ‘kept at home, prepare a habitation’.

117. The noun Ebed עבד (Strong’s 5650 800 occurrences) means ‘bondage, bondservant’, is the same as the verb abad עבד (Strong’s 5647 289 occurrences) means ‘servitude’ (see fact #64). 

Like ben, ebed refers to males AND females, and like bath, shiphchah is translated to present it as referring only to females to mislead us into believing ebed refers to males only (see fact #105).

According to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, the noun shiphchah  שפחה (Strong’s 8198 63 occurrences) means ‘handmaiden, bondwoman, woman-servant’,  and is “from an ‘unused’ root meaning to spread out (as a family; see mishpachah)”, and  the noun mishpachah משפחת (Strong’s 4940 303 occurrences) means ‘family, kindred’, and is “from shaphah (compare shiphchah); a family, i.e. Circle of relatives; figuratively, a class (of persons), a species (of animals) or sort (of things); by extens. A tribe or people”.  Clearly shiphchah and mishpachah are from the same verb, an ‘unused’ root, in the form שפח that means ‘to spread out (as a family), a meaning which is modified by their prefix and/or suffix(es).

Mishpachah has a mem מ prefix that converts the verb to participle or noun form  (see fact #53 a) resulting in the meaning ‘family’.  The taw suffix  ת adds ‘of’ to a noun (see fact #54 g).  For example, in Gen. 12:3 mishpachah  is translated as ‘families’ and the ‘of’ is appended onto the following word ‘the earth’, and in Zech. 12: 12 – 14 there are 5 occurrences of mishpachah in the form משפחת and 3 with the suffix ות indicating plural, translated as ‘family’ and ‘every family’ respectively, and the ‘of’ is appended onto the following word in a few cases such as ‘of David’, ‘of the house’ (x2), ‘of Shimei’, and rather than ‘by itself’ perhaps ‘of itself’ works.

In its basic form, shiphchah has a he suffix that indicates movement towards (see fact #54 d), resulting in the meaning ‘towards spreading out (as a family)’, but is commonly found in other forms.  Analysis of the 63 occurrences reveals the following:

• 11 of the 63 occurrences of shiphchah have the he suffix, which in most cases is translated as ‘a maidservant’ (in Gen. 16:1, 29:24, 29, 1 Sam. 25:41, 2 Sam. 17:17, Psalm 123:2, Prov. 30:23, Isaiah 24:2), except in Gen. 32:5 where it is found with ebed and translated as ‘maidservants’, in Exodus 11:5 with a he suffix that is translated as ‘of the maidservant’, and in Lev. 19:20 is translated as ‘a concubine’. 
• taw (36/63) adding ‘of’, for example in Gen. 16:8, 25:12, 30:7, 10, 12, 35:25, 26 the ‘of’ is added to the preceding word, but when it is found in conjunction with ebed, it translates as ‘maidservant’, for example in Gen. 12:16, 20:14, & 24:35.  With a yod becomes ‘my’ in Gen. 16:2, 5, & 30:18.
• taw waw ות (13/63) that changes the noun to plural, for example in Gen. 30:43, 33:1, 2, 6, 1 Sam. 8:16, 2 Kings 5:26, 2 Chr. 28:10, Esther 7:4, Eccl. 2:7, Isaiah 14:2, Jer. 34:16 x 2, & Joel 2:29.
• taw he תה adding ‘her’ (3/63) in Gen. 16:3, 30:4 & 9.

The ‘concubine’ translation draws attention to the fact that shiphchah is only used in reference to female servants used to bear offspring (to spread out as a family), never wives, evidencing the meaning to be similar to a concubine, a woman who lives and has sex with a man she is not married to and has a lower status than his wife or wives.  For example, Sarah’s ‘maid’ Hagar is called a shiphchah in Gen. 16: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, & 25:12, and a ‘concubine’ (pilegesh Strong’s 6370 37 occurrences) in Gen. 25:6, and Leah and Rachel’s ‘maids’ are called a shiphchah in Gen 29:24, 29, 30: 4 – 12, & 18, 32:22, 33:1, 2, 6, 35:25 & 26, then Rachel’s ‘maid’ Bilhah was called a ‘concubine’ in Gen. 35:22.  Starting in Gen. 22:24 ‘concubine’ is used of female sex slaves, whether or not they bear offspring (Gideon’s concubine in Judges 8:30 – 31, A Levite’s concubine who is brutally murdered in Judges 19: 1 – 20:6, Saul’s concubine in 2 Sam. 3:7, David’s concubines in 2 Sam. 5:13, 15:16, 16:21 & 22, 19:5, 20:3 & 21:11).

Where shiphchah is used within a context that doesn’t fit making offspring, and where we find ebed and shiphchah together, translated as ‘male and female servants’, is evidence of a mistranslation or interpolation.   For example:

• In Gen. 12:16 & 20:14 where the phrase ‘male [ebed] and female servants [shiphchah]’ are found, are duplicate accounts of Abraham allowing Sarah to be held captive by a ruler, having stated she is his sister.  This storyline is repeated again with Isaac and Rebekah in Gen. 26: 7 – 11 evidencing all three accounts may be interpolations.

• In Gen. 24:35, 30:43 & 32:5 ‘family (shiphchah)’ is on the list of Abraham and Jacob’s possessions, along with flocks, servants [ebed], and camels and donkeys.  Similarly, in 1 Sam. 8:16, Yahweh warns Israel that a king will take their ‘servants [ebed] and family members [shiphchah] . . . and put to his work’.

• There are six occurrences in Jer. 34: 9, 10, 11, & 16 (x2) where ebed is translated as ‘his male’ and mishpachah as ‘female slave’, but v 8 – 22 show evidence of being connected to Deut. 15:12 – 18 (M.D. Terblache’s article The Author of Jeremiah 34: 8 – 22 (LXX 41: 8 – 22) Spokesperson For The Judean Debt Slaves), and may be writings of the Deuteronomist.  Also, ish is translated as ‘every man’ (see fact #56) to align with the ‘brother ethics’ Terblanche refers to in his article.

• ‘Male [ebed] and female slaves [shiphchah]’ in Deut. 28:68 authored by the ‘Deuteronomist’ suspected of being uninspired text.

• Kings and Chronicles are largely historic accounts heavily redacted over time, so where ‘male [ebed] and female slaves [shiphchah]’ is found in 2 Kings 5:26, & 2 Chr. 28:10, is likely uninspired text.

• Esther is not a Canonical book, so where ‘male [ebed] and female slaves [shiphchah]’ is found in  Esther 7:4, is uninspired text.

• Ecclesiastes is not inspired yet is canonical for the Jews,  so where ‘male [ebed] and female slaves [shiphchah]’ is found in Eccl. 2:7, is uninspired text.

• The prophecy in Isaiah 14 appears to point to the ‘day of the Lord’, when Israel is settled in their own land and strangers joined with them v1, but then indicates the strangers, ‘the people’ will be possessed by the house of Israel in the land of Yahweh for ‘male [ebed] and female slaves [shiphchah]’, taken captive and ruled over v2.  This is the opposite of more certain ‘day of the Lord prophesies’ like Joel 1 and Dan. 9: 24 – 27 where it is the nation of Israel who are judged, the earthly Jerusalem destroyed, evidencing it to be uninspired text. 

• The prophecy Joel and the quote in Acts  2: 17 – 21 should read “and prophecy your sons [ben בניכם] and your son’s sons [ben  בנותיכם ], your elders dream dreams, your young visions see, and also upon my slaves and family”.

118. The verb shamar שמר (Strong’s 8104 469 occurrences) means ‘beware, be circumspect, take heed to self, keeper, self, mark, watch’ from a primitive root ‘to hedge about (as with thorns)’.  The same as shemer שמר (Strong’s 8105 5 occurrences) has a similar meaning, for example in Zeph 1:12 “Become in time that search Jerusalem with lamps (ner) and punish upon the men stagnant (qapha) upon watching (shemer) who say in their heart not do good Yahweh nor evil.”

119.  The verb ashar אשר (Strong’s 833 16 occurrences) allegedly means ‘call, be blessed, happy, in the sense of successful, go, guide, lead, relieve’.  Ashar is the noun sar שר (Strong’s 8269 421 occurrences) that means ‘chief captain, general, governor, keeper, lord, taskmaster, principal’, with the aleph prefix that indicates 1^st person, singular, future tense. 

Many of the 16 occurrences of ashar, the context fits ‘guide, lead’.  For example, Isaiah 3:12 “Those who lead you [ashar] cause you to error and the way of your paths destroy”, Isaiah 9:16 “and come to be that leaders [ashar] the people will cause them to err and led by them [ashar] are destroyed”, Proverbs 4:14 “The way of the wicked not enter and not guide [ashar] journey evil”, Proverbs 9:6 “Forsake foolishness and live and guide [ashar] way of understanding”, Proverbs 23:19 “Obey you my son and be wise and guide [ashar] in the way your heart”.  ’  Where the context supports ‘blessed, happy’ is evidence of uninspired text (Gen. 30:13, Job 29:11, Psalm 41:2, 72:17, Prov. 3:18, 31:28, Songs 6:9, Isaiah 1:17, Malachi 3:12 & 15).

The conjunction asher אשר (Strong’s 834 5502 occurrences – see fact #77) found in the same form as ashar alleged to mean ‘who, which, that, what’ or ‘after, alike, as soon as, because, every, for, for-as-much, from whence (where)’, must contain the broader meaning of ‘lead, guide, keeper, lord’.  It seems simple, meaningless words are easily substituted for words with a specific meaning, and it is very difficult to see until probing the deeper meaning of the text.  For example, if we substitute ‘lords’ in place of the ‘which, whose, with, that’ that asher is translated in Gen. 2:8 “Yahweh gods  . . . put appointed place the man lord [ashar] they formed” which aligns with Psalm 82:6 where God said “you are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High” which Yahshua quoted in John 10:34.

Looking back at Genesis 1, the waters ‘lords’ below are mankind on the ‘day of sleep’ v. 7 – 8, the trees ‘lords’ seed/offspring are in it (bow) and ‘lords’ bearing seed after their kind on the ‘day of captains’ v. 11 & 13, the living souls, ‘lords’ swarming the waters on the ‘day armed for battle’  v. 21 – 23, and put every green yielding seed ‘lords’ upon (al) the face of all the earth and every tree ‘lord’ in it (bow – see note below) fruit tree yielding see to you become food, and all alive the earth and to every bird of the air and to all creepers upon (al) the earth ‘lords’ in it (bow – see note below) soul living all green herb to food and be so, and saw gods all ‘lords’ made immensely (meod) good, on day make white  v. 29 – 31.

Looking at Gen. 2: 2 – 3 it becomes apparent how easy it is to substitute a non-descript word like ‘which’ for one that has a specific meaning like ‘lord’.  Having translated asher as ‘which’ rather than ‘lord’, forced translators to add pronouns to asah so the sentence will flow.  For example, in Gen. 2:2 “and ended gods in day seventh their work lords (asher) made (asah translated as ‘he had made) and rested . . .”, repeated at the end of the sentence.  Similarly, in Gen. 2:3 the noun gods is moved in front of bara so the sentence will flow “in it (bow – see note below) rested from all work lords (asher) fed to grow and refine (bara translated as ‘God had created’ – see The Real Meaning of Numbers 1 to 7 under heading Five or Armed for Battle for analysis of bara) gods they accomplished”. 

Note: the Hebrew בו bow in Gen. 1:11, 12, 29 & 30 is not assigned a Strong’s #, making it difficult to investigate the meaning.  Today it has quite disparate possible meanings ‘used for’, ‘trust’, ‘down’, ‘proud’, ‘right’, ‘stolen’, or ‘in him/it’ as seen below.  At this time, I’ve used ‘in it’ which is how it is commonly translated in the Genesis creation account, but leave it open to future review if new evidence presents itself revealing a different meaning.

Where asher is translated as ‘such as’, as it is in Exodus 34:10 may be evidence of uninspired text, since ‘lead, guide, keeper, lord’ doesn’t work in the context of the sentence because it isn’t about a living entity.  Evidence to support of this theory is found in Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges observations about this verse:

• The connexion between Exodus 34:9-10 is also imperfect: it is surprising in v. 9 to find Jehovah entreated to go with the people, when He has already in Exodus 33:14-16 promised to do so; and it is also surprising that Exodus 34:10 is no direct answer to the entreaty of v. 9.
• The covenant of Exodus 34:10-27 is described as if it were one made for the first time; neither v. 10 nor v. 27 suggests that it is a second, or new, covenant. The laws in Exodus 34:10-26 are mostly identical verbally with a particular section of those contained in chs. 21–23’: what is the relation subsisting between the two recensions, and how is the repetition to be explained? It must be evident that all these difficulties and inconsistencies are due simply to the amalgamation—and sometimes the imperfect amalgamation—of different sources: they are lessened, though they can hardly be said to disappear, when these sources are recognized and disengaged from one another.

With over 5500 occurrences of asher in the Hebrew Bible, it is impossible to test every verse, but this evidence looks quite promising.

120. The noun geber גבר  (Strong’s 1397 65 occurrences) means ‘mighty one’ from the verb gabar  גבר (Strong’s 1396 25 occurrences) that means ‘be great, be mighty, prevail’, from a primitive root that means ‘to be strong, and by implication, to prevail, act insolently’.  Brown-Driver-Briggs state that geber can mean ‘every one, man’, and gabar can mean ‘man as strong, distinguished from women, children, and non-combatants whom he is to defend’, both are translated often as ‘man/men’ making it indistinguishable from mankind [adam]. 

The verb gabahh  גבה (Strong’s 1361 34 occurrences) means ‘exalt, be haughty, be made higher, lift up, be proud, raise up great height’, the same as gabah  (Strong’s 1362 4 occurrences).  The root is gob/geb גב (Strong’s 1358 10 occurrences & Strong’s 1356 4 occurrences) that mean ‘ditch, pit’, and the he suffix means ‘toward’ (see fact 54 d), so gabahh/gabah means figuratively ‘toward a ditch’.  The nouns gab (Strong’s 1354 13 occurrences & 1355 1 occurrence in Dan 7:6 translated as ‘back’) mean ‘the top or rim, a boss, a vault’.  Gabahh is found in Ezek 31:5 with an aleph א suffix, translated as ‘exalted’ and the context supports elevation of ones self above ‘all’, including God.

The adjective/noun gibbor גבור (Strong’s 1368 159 occurrences) means ‘strong, mighty’, as Brown-Driver Briggs states “one who magnifies himself, behaves proudly, a tyrant, who is bold, audacious”, or ‘strong, valiant man’.  Gibbor is used of angels who are ‘mighty’ in a positive sense, in Isaiah 9:6 the Messiah is named god [el/al] mighty [gibbor] and in Dan. 8:16 & 9:21 the angel Gabriel’s name is found which means mighty [gerber] god [el/al], but where gerber/garbar/gibbor are used generally of mankind, or in a positive way, is evidence of either a mistranslation, misinterpretation, interpolation, or combination thereof. 

For example, Joel 2 is a prophecy for the ‘day of the Lord [Yhvh]’ v1.  A people [am] many [rab] and strong [atsum] the likes of which will never be again v2 (because the nation of Israel are judged and destroyed), before them is land like the garden of Eden with a consuming fire and behind them a desolate wilderness with blazing flames (of judgement see fact #125) v3, representing the two choices before Israel – return to Eden to be tested by Yahweh’s fire, or be judged and destroyed by the Roman army.

The Roman army are described in v4 – 8;  they appear swift, their appearance  like war horses so they run v4, a noise like chariots over [al] tops the mountains consume the stubble, like a people [am] strong [atsum] arranged for war, before them the people [am] are in anguish, all faces turn pale v5 – 6, like mighty ones [gibbor] they run like mighty men [ish see fact #56] of war they climb the wall and mighty men [ish] in formation march and not they deviate path, and mighty men [ish] each other not push mighty one [gerber] in highway and march, and by means of weapons [shelach see fact #123] fall/die [naphal see fact #126] not stop v7 – 8.

We see in Joel 2, the similar translation of ish (see fact #56), adam, and gibbor makes them indistinguishable from each other.  Brown-Driver-Briggs sees the Romans as ‘strong, valiant man’, they were certainly fearless and bold, but not noble or gallant, so valiant is a poor choice of word to describe the Roman invaders, any more than the men of Babylon would be called such.  Since violence appears to be an overarching feature of these mighty ones, ‘warriors’ is a better translation for gibbor  when used of men.

Another example is found in Zechariah 13:7 where problems with the text and the translation make it appear to be a prophecy of the Messiah’s incarnation.  The first problem is in the translation of the verb roi רעי (Strong’s 7471 or 7473) as ‘My shepherd’ when it means either ‘pasture’ or ‘shepherd’, that in Zechariah 11:17 is used of a worthless shepherd.  The second problem is a “textual difference  .  .  . between the MT and the Hebrew text that served as the basis for the Targum: the latter read עמיתו instead of עמיתי , ‘his association’ instead of ‘my association’, a reading that finds support in the LXX and in Theodotion’s translation (and in a very few Hebrew MSS)“  which author Maarten Menken states “significantly impact the interpretation of this verse” in his article Striking the Shepherd.  Early Christian Versions and Interpretations of Zechariah 13,7,.

Menken notes “The Targum remains relatively close to the MT, except that ‘real’ persons and acts are substituted for ‘metaphorical’ ones”.  The Targum reads “O sword, be revealed against the king and against the prince his companion who is his equal, who is like him, says the Lord of hosts; slay the king and the princes shall be scattered and I will bring back a mighty stroke upon the underlings”. Instead of ‘shepherd’ we find ‘king’, and instead of ‘man’ (geber which means ‘mighty one’) we find ‘prince’, roles  which are similar to those in Ezek. 28 where the leader of Tyre is ‘a man [adam]’ v2, and the king of Tyre is the anointed cherub who sinned in Eden and was cast from the mountain of God, from the midst of the ‘stones אבני of fire אש‘  (note: eben אבן, Strong’s 68 is found in Gen. 2:12) v12 – 16. 

In Micah 2:1 – 2 , “who plan wickedness and perform evil upon for it is to mighty [el] their hand and covet field and plunder them, and dwellings and seize, and oppress them [עשקו see Isaiah 52:4] mighty one [gerber] and their house and mighty man [ish] and their inheritance”.  It is the mighty ones [gerber] and mighty men [ish] who oppress ‘them’!  This is supported by Isaiah 5:14 & 15 “therefore has enlarged Sheol  soul and opens its mouth beyond measure, and shall descend their glory and their multitude and their pomp and jubilant into it, and humble self man [adam], and brought down mighty man [ish], and eyes mighty [gaboah] shall be brought down.”

121. The verb rabah/rebah  רבה (Strong’s 7235 & 7236 230 & 6 occurrences) mean ‘bring in abundance’ and ‘to grow great’ respectively, the basic form is rab/rob רב, and the he suffix indicating movement toward (see fact #54 d), found in the form ירב  in Gen 1:22 and ורבו  in Gen 1:22 & 28 where it is translated as ‘[and] multiply’. 

The adjective rab רב (Strong’s 7227 462 occurrences and Strong’s 7229 15 occurrences – all in Daniel and Ezra) can also mean great in the sense of ‘captain, champion, chief’, the noun rab (Strong’s 7228) are translated as ‘an archer, arrows’ but the context supports ‘captains’.  The noun rob רב (Strong’s 7230 147 occurrences) means ‘abundance, all, common sort, excellent, greatly huge, be increased’, from the verb rabab רבב (Strong’s 7231 13 occurrences) that also means ‘increase, multiply’ with most occurrences in the form רבו , the same as the verb רבב (Strong’s 7232 2 occurrences) that means ‘to shoot (an arrow)’ but only found in the forms רבו and רב, likely uninspired text. The noun rebu רבו (Strong’s 7238 5 occurrences all in Daniel) means ‘greatness, majesty’, and the noun ribbo רבו  (Strong’s 7239 11 occurrences & 7240 2 occurrences in Daniel) means “ten thousand, myriad’ but ‘abundance’ also fits the context. 

The noun rebibim רביב (Strong’s 7241 6 occurrences) means ‘abundant showers’, only occurring in plural form which according to Brown-Driver-Briggs refers to showers causing fertility, but the evidence is weak to support this alternate meaning.

122. The noun ramah רמה (Strong’s 7413 5 occurrences) means ‘high place’, the same as rimmah  (Strong’s 7415) that means ‘a worm, maggot’ in the sense of breeding (compare ruwm Strong’s 7411) a maggot (as rapidly bred), literally or figuratively, from ramam  (Strong’s 7426 7 occurrences) that means ‘exalt, lift up self’.  An active participle of rum רום also found in רמה form, רממת in Ezek. 31:4 (Strong’s 7311 189 occurrences) that means ‘a height (as a seat of idolatry).  Similar to bamah  במת (Strong’s 1116 102 occurrences) that means ‘high places’ where Israel worshipped other gods, their idols, burning their sons and daughters in the fire Jer. 7:31, 19:5 & 32:35, that Yahweh promised would be destroyed in Lev 26:30, Numbers 21:28, 33:52, Ezek 6: 3, 6, 16:16.

123.  The noun shelach שלח (Strong’s 7973 8 occurrences) means ‘dart, plant, put off, sword, weapon’, from shalach שלח (Strong’s 7971 847 occurrences) translated as ‘cast away, forsake, shoot forth, spread’, in a violent sense like a ‘missile of attach, i.e. spear, or sword (see Joel 2:8)’, or figuratively ‘a shoot of growth, i.e. branch’. 

124.  Few scholars believe Isaiah to be the author of the entire 66 chapters of the book of Isaiah.  Isaiah is grouped into three divisions, proto (Isaiah 1 – 39 dated before 587 in Jerusalem), deutero (Isaiah 40 – 55 thought to be before 538 in Babylon) and trito (Isaiah 56 – 66 is dates after 539 in Jerusalem), based on the date the writing is thought to have taken place, but the authorship of verses and chapters in the first division are challenged, even outside the ‘Isaiah Apocalypse’ in Isaiah 24 – 27 and Isaiah 36 – 39 a historical narrative edited into the book from 2 Kings 18:13 – 20:19.  Even verses where Isaiah is mentioned by name, Isaiah 1:1, 2:1, 7:3, 13:1, 20:2 & 3, 37: 2, 5, 6 & 21, 38: 1, 4, 21, 39: 2, 5, & 9, are challenged as not being authored by Isaiah. 

The only way to properly assess the inspiredness of Isaiah is one word, verse, and chapter at time.  Since this is a formidable task, for now let’s consider the verses in Isaiah 27:3 and 43:20 where shaqah was used in a positive light of Yahweh watering, the opposite of the normal meaning (see fact #98), which is evidence against the text being inspired:

• Isaiah 24 – 27 prophesies the ‘day of the Lord’ when Yahweh punishes the host of heaven and the kings of the earth, then reigns on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem Isaiah 24:21 – 23, that Judah will be protected by God, the dead will be raised, and the inhabitants of the earth punished for their iniquity Isaiah 26: 1 – 21.  This is the opposite of more certain ‘day of the Lord prophesies’ like Joel 1 and Dan. 9: 24 – 27 where it is the nation of Israel who are judged, the earthly Jerusalem destroyed, evidencing it to be uninspired text. 

• The proper translation of Isaiah 43:20 reveals it to be uninspired text.  The meaning of the following words is much different than found in any Bible translation:

#1 kabad/kabed כבד (Strong’s 3513 115 occurrences) means ‘abounding with, more grievously afflict, boast, be chargeable, be dim’, but is frequently translated as ‘honor, glorify, respect’, in Isa. 43:20 it is translated as ‘honor’ in the King James, ESV & NIV, ‘glorify’ in NASB, and ‘thank me’ in the NLT.

#2 chay (see fact #24) in its basic form חי means ‘alive, living’.  The taw suffix חית adds ‘of’ to a noun, which we would appropriately be translated ‘living of’, is translated as ‘beast’ in many cases, as it is in this verse.  Chay is found in this form in Gen. 1:25 and the ‘of’ added to the next word ‘the earth’. 

#3 tannin (see fact #25) means ‘monster, dragon’ but is translated as ‘the jackals’.

#4 bath בנות means ‘desolate’  (see fact #104) but is translated as ‘and’.

#5 yaanah יענה (Strong’s 3284 8 occurrences) means either ‘owl’ or ‘greed’ but is always translated as ‘ostrich’.  Yaanah may be anah ענה (Strong’s 6030 329 occurrences)without the yod prefix in Gen. 35:3, 41:16 where it is translated as ‘who answered’ and ‘an answer’ respectively, and in Hosea 2:21 with an aleph prefix where it is translated as ‘I will respond’.  The yod י prefix indicates the imperfect (future) tense, called the jussive that  expresses a desire that something should happen, normally used in the 3^rd person (he/she/it) but may be 2^nd person (you) (see Fact #53 f).

The sentence should read “honor/glorify/thank me living of the field, the monsters desolate they respond for I give in wilderness waters, rivers in the wasteland to irrigate my chosen people.” Regardless whether kabad carries a positive or negative meaning, the sentence says ‘monsters’ are Yahweh’s ‘chosen’ people, who will ‘honor/glorify/thank’ God for ‘irrigation/poison’.

125. The noun lahab להב (Strong’s 3851 12 occurrences) and lehabah/lehebeth להבה (Strong’s 3852 19 occurrences) mean ‘flame, blade’, but as indicated in Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, they more specifically represent judgement using the forces of nature (Isaiah 29:6, 30:30 & 66:15), a force that destroys like locusts (Joel 2:3), war (numbers 21:28), consuming chaff (Isaiah 5:24) and calamity (Isaiah 43:2).  The difference between lahab and lehabah is the he suffix indicates movement towards, so in Joel 2:3 being burnt by the ‘flame’ of judgment is a choice, and in Joel 2:5 it is too late.

126. The verb naphal/nephal נפל (Strong’s 5307 & 5308 435 & 11 occurrences) is commonly translated as ‘fall/fell’ which doesn’t capture the fact that it is often used of a violent death, and figuratively means ‘go to ruin, perish, experience calamity’ according to Brown-Driver-Briggs, weak evidence to support it meaning ‘fall prostrate’.  As a noun נפל (Strong’s 5309 3 occurrences) means ‘miscarriage, abortion’. 

127. The verb tsavah צוה (Strong’s 6680 493 occurrences) means ‘appoint, forbid, set in order’, the he suffix indicating movement toward, thus ‘set in order’ is an appropriate translation.  The root tsav צו (Strong’s 6673 9 occurrences) means ‘decree, order’.  

128. The verb akal אכל (Strong’s 398 810 occurrences) means literally or figuratively ‘burn up, consume, devour, eat’ often translated as ‘eat’, in plural forms okel אכלם (Strong’s 400 44 occurrences).  With a he suffix forms oklah אכלה (Strong’s 402 18 occurrences) that means ‘toward burning/consuming’, in Ezek. 29:5 And cast you off the wilderness you and all fish your stream (yeor) upon face the field cast down, not gather and not assemble to living the land and birds the heavens put you to devour (oklah).  In Gen. 1: 29 – 30 on the sixth day (the day make white) God gave those in image rule over every living thing on the earth, and all plants, trees to devour (oklah).

129.  The verb & noun muth מות (Strong’s 4191 & 4194 839 & 155 occurrences) mean ‘worthy of death, death, die’ often translated as ‘die/death’.

130.  The day of the Lord prophecy in Joel 2 has five parts; the destruction  in v 1 -17, and the salvation v 18 – 27, AFTER the gifts of the Spirit v 28 – 29, and BEFORE (panim/paneh Strong’s 6440 ‘faces’) wonders in the heavens before the coming of day of Yahweh v 30 – 31, and become all who call in appointed name of Yahweh will be saved, survivors Yahweh calls v32. 

v1 – 17 Begins with “Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in mountain holy, let tremble all inhabitants the land for is coming day of Yahweh” v1.  ‘Holy’ (Strong’s 6944) means ‘set apart’ and ‘mountain’ (Strong’s 2022) figuratively means power, that in this case represents Israel, God’s people upon who judgment is about to fall v2.  Before them consumes a fire, like the garden of Eden, and behind them burns a flame and a desolate wilderness nothing escapes v3.  Then the attack on the city is described that only those who return to Yahweh will be saved from when the bridegroom comes out of his room and the bride out of her chamber and the priests weep v 4 – 17.

v18 – 20 Yahweh is jealous for his land and has pity on his people v18, answers his people and sends grain, new wine, and oil and never again make them a reproach among the nations (goy) v19, and remove the northern (tsephoni) far away to a parched and desolate land with his face upon the sea eastern and his back upon the sea western and rise up stench and rise up foul odor because monstrous things made v20,

v21 – 25 God’s people not revere (yare) land be glad rejoice for abundance Yahweh to make, not revere (yare) the beasts of the field for spring up pastures from wilderness for tree and bear its fruit and fig (teenah) tree and vine put wall/fortress/army (chel) and sons (eben) Zion (tsiyyon) be glad and rejoice in Yahweh your god for given you the early rain (mowreh) to righteousness (tsedaqah), to you rain (geshem) early  and latter in beginning (rishon) and be full the threshing floor (goren) and abundance wine press new wine and oil, and peace to you the sleep time lord devour the locust (arbeh) the worms (yeleq) the caterpillar (chasil) the palmer worm (gazam) my wall/fortress/army (chel) lord sent among you v25.

V26 – 29 and you devour, devour and be sated and you shine (halal) appointed name Yahweh your God lord make with you (im) wonderful and not be ashamed my people everlasting (olam).

v30 – 32 After Yahweh’s spirit will be poured out on all flesh (basar), sons and sons of sons will prophesy, elders dream dreams, and young see visions, even on bondservants (ebed see fact #117) and family (shipchah see fact #117)  v28 – 29 quoted by Peter in Acts 2: 16 – 18 (ebed and shipchah are mistranslated in both).

131. The noun panim or paneh פני (Strong’s  6440 2128 occurrences) means ‘accept, anger, as long as, battle, because of, beseech, countenance’, often translated as ‘before’ 1006/2128, ‘face(s)’ (334/2128), less often as ‘presence’ (131/2128), ‘front’ (86/2128), ‘because’ (80/2128) or ‘surface’ (26/2128).  From panah (Strong’s 6437 135 occurrences) that means ‘appear, behold, cast out, come on, corner, dawning, empty’, often translated as ‘turn’. ‘Face (panim/paneh) against (el)’ indicates Ezekiel’s words against God’s adversaries, all the men upon (al) the face (panim/paneh) of the earth overthrown, the mountains cast down and the steep places and all wall to ground cast down Ezek. 38:2 & 20, and upon (al) face (panim/paneh) the field cast down Ezek. 39:5.

Constructing the Sentences

Let’s construct the sentences:

Gen 2:10  The subject is ‘river’ [figuratively ‘eminency’], verb ‘went forth’, and object ‘from Eden’, second verb ‘to irrigate’, and second object ‘the enclosure’.  The subject ‘appointed place’, compound verb ‘separated’ and ‘began to sprawl’, and object ‘overlords’.

Gen 2:11  The subject ‘appointed place the one apart’, verb ‘selfish pride’, second verb ‘surrounds’, and object ‘all land the circle’, and second object ‘lord appointed name the gold’.

Gen 2:12  The subject ‘and gold the land it good’, verb ‘appointed name’, and object ‘the piece gold and she will be a building stone the onyx/sheep’. 

Gen 2:13  The subject ‘appointed name the river [eminency] the sleeping’, verb ‘burst forth’, and second verb ‘surrounds’, and object ‘the whole land fat’.

Gen 2:14  The subject ‘appointed name the river [eminency] the captain’ ‘Hiddeqel/Tigris’, the pronoun hu/hi pointing back to the subject, followed by a second verb ‘who went’ and object ‘front/east/before Assyria’ or ‘northern kingdom’ as stated in the Samaritan Targum.  The subject ‘the river [eminency]’, adjective ‘fourth’ or verb ‘sprawling’, and object ‘Euphrates’, which I’ve stroked through as it is likely an interpolation. 

Gen. 2:15  The subject ‘Yahweh gods’, compound verbs ‘took’ and ‘cast down’, and object ‘the man in the garden of Eden’, and compound verbs ‘to serve and take heed to self’.

Translation

The paragraph translates as follows:

And river (eminency) went forth from Eden to irrigate/give drink the enclosure and from appointed place they separated and began to sprawl overlords.  Appointed place the one apart spread out, it surrounded the whole land, the mobilization, leading appointed place golden.  And gold the land it good appointed name severed piece gold and will be a building stone the onyx/sheep.  And appointed place the river (eminency) the sleeping burst forth, it surrounds the whole land fat.  And appointed name the river (eminency) the captain Tigris (Hiddeqel?), he/she/it went before Assyria, and the river (eminency) the sprawling, he/she/it Euphrates.  And seized Yahweh gods the man and cast down him in garden of Eden to serve and take heed to self.

Analysis

At first glance, Gen. 2: 10 – 14 seems to have a unified theme, the naming of ‘four headwaters’ flowing out of Eden, but these verses are disconnected from the context of the surrounding text, and geographical reality. 

In the article, The Four Rivers of Paradise, author Yehuda Radday questions the geographical information in Genesis, why it is inaccurate, strange, and why it is there at all. Inaccuracies including the Tigris and Euphrates have no common source, rivers do not divide into ‘heads’ but deltas, and that the source of the river should be called the head.  He questions why the first river, Pishon, is “nowhere attested to in Biblical or extra-Biblical texts”, the second river, Gihon, is found in scripture but it is a rivulet which is not near the land of Cush, the third river, Hideqel, “beyond a doubt is the Tigris, but in contrast to the first two, does not ‘flow around’ but ‘goes’?   

What’s more, Radday wonders why the Nile river is omitted when it is mentioned 28 times in scripture.  He concerned that Cush is “a name which may apply equally to two widely different locations, . . .Ethiopia in the southwest of Canaan, . . . a Persian province northeast of Babylonia”.  He questions why the Hidegel ‘goes’ east of Ashur (Assyria) at the beginning of time, why the Euphrates is given just a brief mention, why no more is said of it, why the information on the four rivers gradually decreases?  He questions the mention of gold, with the definite article he, and bdellium and onyx stone, which are unidentifiable.   He believes the solution is to look for the figurative meaning behind the text which I agree is necessary to overcome our English Bible translations which support the Eden paradise theme.

The reason for the strangeness of this text is a combination of mistranslation and interpolation.  With arba translated as ‘sprawling’ (see fact #92) instead of ‘four’, rosh translated as ‘overlords’ (see fact #93) instead of ‘heads’, the accurate translation of the numbers (see the article The Real Meaning of the Numbers 1 to 7), and sham/shem as ‘appointed name/place’ (see fact #94), and stroking out  Tigris (Hiddeqel), and ‘river fourth is Euphrates’ which were likely added to complete the list of four rivers, we see a little more clearly that the context is not about ‘four rivers’, or geography.  

We know man’s relationship with God took a turn for the worse in Gen. 2: 10 – 14, because BEFORE, the man was not yet in servitude (see fact #64) to the ground in Gen 2:5, was made from the dust (perishable – see fact #52) in Gen 2:7, put/appointed (see fact #75) in the garden (enclosure) Eden in Gen 2:8, and presented with the choice between the tree of life (righteousness) and the tree of knowledge (experience) of good and evil (sin) in Gen. 2:9, and AFTER, Yahweh seized (see fact #115) and cast down (see fact #116) the man in Eden to serve (see fact #117) and take heed to self (see fact #118)” in Gen 2:15.

The setting of Genesis 2: 4 – 3:24 and Ezekiel 31 are in the garden of Eden (Gen. 2:8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 3:1, 2, 8, 10, 23, 24 and Ezek. 31:8 & 9).  In Gen. 2: 6 “a vapour rose up from the earth and irrigated the whole face of the ground” (see facts #65 & #66 also mean ‘poison’ and ‘furnish a potion to’), and in Gen. 2:10 “river went out from Eden to irrigate the garden”, that in Ezek. 31: 4 are the waters  of the deep (tehom Gen. 1:2 see fact #29).  The time frames are different, Gen. 2:14 is ‘before Assyria’ versus  Ezek. 31:3 where Assyria is a cedar in Lebanon with beautiful branches and forest shade, became very high, its top among the clouds. 

There are many common words in Genesis 2 and Ezekiel 31:4 which explain what caused Assyria to grow (gadol see fact #26) and be exalted (rum see fact #122 height as a seat of idolatry):

• With their rivers (nahar Gen 2:10, 13 & 14 see fact #90 figuratively meaning ‘prosperity’, the resh suffix reflecting ‘eminence’ see fact #91),
• Running (halak Gen. 2:14 see fact #110),
• Around (sabab Gen. 2:11 & 13 see fact #102),
• Its planting place (matta from nata Gen 2:8 see fact #71 meaning established people),
• Sent (shalach Gen. 2:14 see fact #101 – ‘rank’ similar to shelach 123 – ‘attack’),
• Channels (t’alah Gen. 2:6 see fact #99 ‘uprising’),
• Upon (el in Gen. 1:9 see fact #99 contains some element of power)
• Trees (ets Gen. 1:11, 12, 29, & 2:9)
• The field (sadeh Gen 2:5 see fact #60 figurative meaning ‘toward ruin’)

There are three main characters in Gen. 2: 10 – 14:

1.  Satan is the eminence (see fact #90 – a combination of prosperity and power) that flowed out of Eden, furnished a potion (see fact #66) the garden.

2.  Assyria parted (see The Real Meaning of Numbers 1 to 7 under heading ‘One or Apart’) from the appointed place and became sprawling overlords (rosh see fact #93), and spread out ‘like an infection’ (see fact #96), surrounding (see fact #102) the whole land, the mobilization (see fact #97) lords (see fact #119) appointed place the gold (see fact #103). 

The prosperity and power (eminence) of the sleeping (dead) (see The Real Meaning of Numbers 1 to 7 under heading Two or Sleeping) burst forth (see fact #107), it surrounds (see fact #102) the whole land fat (see fact #108), and the prosperity and power of the captain/prince (shelishi  in The Real Meaning of the Numbers 1 to 7 reports directly to the king – see fact #100).

3. The severed piece (see fact #104) and building stone (see fact #105) the onyx/sheep (see fact #106). 

Assyria accepted Satan’s offer of “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory . . . if he would fall down and worship him”, a temptation to which Yahshua said “It is written, you shall worship Yahweh your God and serve him only” Matthew 4:8 – 10.  Satan became “the ruler of this world” John 16:11, the king (see fact #100 ‘foreign god’) of Tyre Ezek. 28: 11 – 16, and when his princes/captains died they were replaced with new ones Ezek. 28: 1 – 10. Until Yahshua came to give his life a ransom for many Matthew 20:28 & Mark 10:45, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoner Isaiah 61:1 & Luke 4:18, and appeared a second time to bring salvation to those who eagerly awaited him Hebrews 9:28.

In Gen. 2:10, rosh is found in plural form ראשים  translated as ‘heads’, ‘headwaters’, ‘branches’,  ‘rivers’, or even ‘riverheads’, but ‘heads’ are leaders, masters, and captains in war, fathers, and husbands under patriarchy, Rabbi’s, priest’s, and ministers in organized religion, presidents, vice-presidents, and governors in government, anywhere headship is followed.  This explains why rosh also means ‘poison’, the poison of headship which resulted in the loss of eternal life from the beginning of time.

Yahshua warned against those who lord it over others in Matthew 20:25,& Mark 10:42, being called ‘benefactors’ Luke 22:25 which today we call philanthropists, those who disguise their evil intentions under the guise of helping those less fortunate.  Yahshua commanded his disciples to “call no one teacher for one is teacher and you are brothers, and call no one father on the earth, one is your father in heaven, neither be called leaders since the leader of you is one the Messiah” in Matt. 23:8 – 10, forbidding any type of headship, because we are all equal before God.  As stated in Gal. 3:28, neither is there Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female, all are one in the Messiah.

Next we will look at Genesis 2: 15 to 17.