Transcription
A Mechanical Translationof the Book of GenesisThe Hebrew text literallytranslated word for word Jeff A. Benner
Cover design by Jeff A. Benner.Copyright 2007 Jeff A. BennerAny part of this book may be copied for non-profit educational purposesonly, without prior permission.
Table of ContentsACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . 6INTRODUCTION . 7Contents . 7The project . 7The Translation . 8The Hebrew Language . 9Hebrew Names . 11The Names of God . 11Hebrew words . 12Hebrew Verbs . 13Hebrew gender . 15Hebrew numbers. 16THE MECHANICAL TRANSLATION OF GENESIS . 17Chapter 1 . 17Chapter 2 . 22Chapter 3 . 27Chapter 4 . 31Chapter 5 . 36Chapter 6 . 41Chapter 7 . 45Chapter 8 . 49Chapter 9 . 53Chapter 10 . 58Chapter 11 . 63Chapter 12 . 68Chapter 13 . 72Chapter 14 . 76Chapter 15 . 81Chapter 16 . 84Chapter 17 . 87Chapter 18 . 92Chapter 19 . 98Chapter 20 . 106Chapter 21 . 109Chapter 22 . 116Chapter 23 . 121Chapter 24 . 124Chapter 25 . 137Chapter 26 . 143Chapter 27 . 150Chapter 28 . 158Chapter 29 . 163Chapter 30 . 169
Chapter 31 . 177Chapter 32 . 187Chapter 33 . 193Chapter 34 . 197Chapter 35 . 202Chapter 36 . 208Chapter 37 . 216Chapter 38 . 223Chapter 39 . 228Chapter 40 . 233Chapter 41 . 237Chapter 42 . 248Chapter 43 . 255Chapter 44 . 261Chapter 45 . 267Chapter 46 . 273Chapter 47 . 279Chapter 48 . 286Chapter 49 . 291Chapter 50 . 297DICTIONARY OF WORDS AND NAMES. 303Words . 303Prefixes, Suffixes and Conjugations. 364Names . 366CONCORDANCE OF WORDS AND NAMES . 374Words . 374Prefixes, Suffixes and Conjugations. 403Name . 404APPENDIXES . 411Appendix A: Verb Translations . 411Appendix B: Phrase Translations . 412Appendix C: Alternative Translations . 413Appendix D: Idioms . 415Appendix E: Pronunciations for transliterated words and names . 416Appendix F: Verse Notes. 417BIBLIOGRAPHY . 426NOTES . 427
AcknowledgementsI am especially thankful to my wife Denise and my children Josiah,Jeremiah and Jedidiah for allowing me the time to dedicate to this projectas well as their continued support.A special thanks goes to Rob Black, Doris Dippel, Myhrrhleine Hunter,Jeanne M. Irons and Frances Stolz for their careful and extensive review,editing and content suggestions of the manuscript. Without theirassistance this book would not have been the quality that it is.I would also like to thank the following individuals who assisted with theediting of the manuscript and provided valuable suggestions for contentand corrections;Lance BeardDonnieBlankenshipCheryl BrunoLuAna CraigRobert FierKen FinnSteven M. FoisyJanice GonzalezRose HolidaySandra S. KellerFrank R. KruegerJerry R LambertDuncan LawBridgett MageeJohn Neff 6 Josh NielsonPeter RoyMary SellmarYvonne ToddSteve WuJanet Wyckoff
Mechanical Translation of Genesis - IntroductionIntroductionHave you ever read a translation of the Bible and wanted to know whatthe original Hebrew behind that translation really said, but didn't knowHebrew? Well now you can. This translation reveals the Hebrew in avery mechanical and literal way as never before allowing you to see theHebrew text behind the English without knowing Hebrew.ContentsThis book will include two translations. The first is the MechanicalTranslation (MT), located in the left column, where every Hebrew word,prefix and suffix is translated exactly the same way every time theyoccur and in the same order as it is found in the Hebrew text. The secondis the Revised Mechanical Translation (RMT), located in the rightcolumn, which re-arranges the words so that they can be understoodthrough standard English grammar. Included with each verse is theHebrew text (Biblia Hebraica Leningradensia) for those who know, orare learning, Hebrew and is located above the MT and RMT.Because the meaning of a Hebrew word cannot be conveyed completelythrough one or two English words, each word found in the MT will beincluded in the dictionary located at the back of this book. Thisdictionary will more accurately define each word within the context ofthe Ancient Hebrew language and culture.Also included at the back of this book is a concordance allowing thereader to search for each occurrence of a word within the book ofGenesis.The projectThis book is the beginning of a series of translations of the books of theBible which will, for the first time, translate the Hebrew text of the Bibleliterally into English without inserting a translators interpretation of thetext. 7
Mechanical Translation of Genesis - IntroductionThe foundation to this translation is the Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of theBible which defines each Hebrew word within the context of itsetymological roots and the cultural background behind each word.The MT was created by examining each Hebrew word (which will ofteninclude one or more prefixes and suffixes) and translating it into English.For instance, the first word of the Bible is tysarb bereshiyt (TheHebrew text is read from right to left while the transliteration, in italics,is read from left to right) includes the prefix b b and the word tysarreshiyt. Every place the prefix b b is found, it is translated as “in ” andevery occurrence of the word tysar reshiyt is translated as Summithence, the complete translation of this word would be in Summit.Once the MT was completed, work on the RMT began which translateseach verse as accurately as possible to retain the literal meaning of thetext yet allow one who does not know Hebrew sentence structure to beable to read and understand the text.It is not the intention of this book to replace all existing translations anddictionaries but instead to be a study guide to assist the reader to see thetext from its raw Hebraic perspective.This translation may also be used by those learning Hebrew as a tool foridentifying words, prefixes and suffixes and verb conjugations as well asHebrew sentence structures and how to properly translate and interpretthe text.Accompanying this book is the Mechanical Translation Website(http://mthb.ancient-hebrew.org) which will include additionalinformation for this book, as well as updates and corrections and theprogress of additional volumes.The TranslationA word in the MT beginning with an uppercase letter represents aHebrew word while a word beginning with a lower case letter representsa prefix, suffix or verb tense. As an example, the first word of theHebrew Bible is “in Summit” where the word “in ” is a prefix to theword “Summit.” 8
Mechanical Translation of Genesis - IntroductionSome words will be added in the RMT to clarify the text. The mostcommon of these will be the various conjugations of the verb “to be” (is,are, was, were, etc.), “of,” “a,” “an,” “the” or “it.”The word “one” or “thing” is occasionally added to a noun forclarification. For instance, in 24:2 the servant of Avraham is called a“beard” but is best translated as a “bearded one” meaning an elder (seethe dictionary entry for this word).Some verses may be translated more than one way or will havegrammatical or textual errors within the Hebrew text. Such verses will beidentified by an asterisk behind the verse number and an explanation forthis verse will be found in Appendix F.The Hebrew LanguageThe language of the Ancient Hebrews is closely related to theiragricultural and nomadic lifestyle. Each word must be understoodthrough this culture rather than from our own modern western GrecoRoman culture. As an example, the Hebrew word hwum mitsvah isusually translated as a command or commandment in most othertranslations but Hebraicly means the directions given to guide one on thejourney. Hence, this word will be translated in the MT as “direction.”Hebraic thought differs from our own process of thinking in that theHebrews were concrete thinkers in contrast to our own abstract way ofthinking. Concrete thought relates all words, concepts and ideas tosomething that can be sensed by the five senses. For instance, theHebrew word Pa aph is the nose, or nostrils, but is the same word foranger since one who is angry will flare the nostrils.At times you are going to come across a word in this translation thatseems to make absolutely no sense. This is mostly due to the differencesbetween our modern Greco-Roman perspective of thought and theancient Hebrew’s perspective of thought. Also keep in mind that eachHebrew word is translated exactly the same way every time, so there willbe instances when the word seems out of context. What you will need todo is study that word and the context which it is used in, so you canbetter understand its Hebraic meaning. Once this has been done the 9
Mechanical Translation of Genesis - Introductionword, and the verse itself, will come to life in ways never beforeperceived. A good example of this is found in the very first verse ofGenesis where most translations will have “In the beginning Godcreated.” The Revised Mechanical Translation reads “In the summitElohiym fattened.” The Hebrew word tysar reshiyt literally means thehead or top of a place or time, what is prominent. The Hebrew word arbbara literally means to fatten but with the extended idea of filling up. Incontext, the first chapter of Genesis is about importance of the filling upof the heavens and the earth, not its creation within a span of time (anabstract idea that is foreign to Hebraic thinking).Hebrew words, verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc., are best defined through avisual action. The Hebrew root bqe is used for the noun eqev meaningthe heel, the verb aqav meaning to restrain in the sense of grabbing theheel to hold one back and the adjective eyqev meaning because, or since,through the concept of one idea in a sentence on the heel of another ideawithin the sentence.The Hebrew word ta et (translated as “At” in the MT) is frequentlyfound in the Hebrew text to identify the direct object of a verb bypreceding it. Since there is no English equivalent for this grammaticaltool this word will not be translated in the RMT. However, this word isused in the text on occasion to mean “with” or “at.”Because the original Hebrew text does not include any punctuation suchas periods and quotations, the MT will not include these either. The onlyexception to this is the use of the comma which will be used in the RMTto separate phrases where the grammar of the sentence requires aseparation as well as at the end of a thought.A combination of Hebrew words, prefixes and/or suffixes areoccasionally used to convey one idea. The Hebrew phrase Nk le al kenliterally means “upon so” but is translated in the RMT as “therefore.” Alist of these types of phrases are found in appendix B.Some Hebrew idioms are found in the Bible. An idiom is a word, orphrase used in a sense that is not meant to be taken literally. An exampleof a Hebrew idiom is the phrase “bone of the day” (7:13), an idiommeaning “noontime.” A list of idioms is found in appendix D. 10
Mechanical Translation of Genesis - IntroductionHebrew NamesIn our western culture we are comfortable using names, such as Noah orAdam, as simple identifiers with no actual meaning attached to the name.But, this is not the case with Hebrew names where each name is a word,or a combination of words, with a meaning. For instance, the name rbeever (see 10:21) is usually transliterated as Ever or Eber but, is a Hebrewword meaning “cross over.” The MT and the RMT will represent thisname as “Ever [cross over]”.An individual descended from Ever is identified as yrbe eevriy (see14:13) where the suffix y iy means “one of.” The MT will translate thisname as ‘“Ever [cross over]” of’ and the RMT as ‘one of “Ever [crossover]”.’ A people descended from Ever is identified as Myrbe eevriym(see 40:15) where the suffix My iym identifies the name as a pluralmeaning “ones of.” The MT will translate this name as ‘“Ever [crossover]” s’ and the RMT as ‘ones of “Ever [cross over]”.’The common pronunciation of the word Pharoah comes from the Greektranslation called the Septuagint. In the Hebrew text this is pronouncedParoh (pah-roh).Appendix E includes a guide for pronouncing transliterated Hebrewnames.The Names of GodThe name Jehovah/Yahweh is written in Hebrew with four letters - hwhyyhwh. These four letters, as a Hebrew word, is the third person,masculine, singular, imperfect tense of the verb hwh hawah and literallymeans “he exists” and would be transliterated as “yihweh” or “yehuwh.”However, because of the strong controversy over the actualpronunciation of the name this translation will represent this name as“YHWH [he exists]”.’The Hebrew word Myhla elohiym, commonly translated as “God” inmost modern translations, is a masculine plural word meaning “powers.”This word is used in 1:1 as the subject of the verb arb bara meaning“he fattened” where the “he” identifies the subject of the verb as a 11
Mechanical Translation of Genesis - Introductionmasculine singular. Because of this conflict of number where the verbidentifies the subject as a singular but the subject being a plural word, itis apparent that the word Myhla elohiym is a proper name and not anoun and is therefore translated as “Elohiym [Powers]”. However, whenthis word is written in the Hebrew as yhla elohey (identified as aconstruct due to the missing M), such as in 9:26, it is apparently beingused as a noun rather than a proper name and will be translated as“powers of.”The Hebrew words ynda adonai (meaning “my lords”, see 15:2) and ydsshaddai (meaning “my breasts”, see 17:1) are frequently used for Godand will also be treated as proper names.Hebrew wordsSome Hebrew words are always written in the plural (e.g. faces andwaters). This idiomatic form does not always imply that the word isplural and will usually be translated in the singular in the RMT.Some words have various nuances of meaning. In most cases the contextwill help define the nuance, but in some cases the nuance cannot bedetermined. For instance, in 4:26 the word “pierced” can be interpretedas “begin” or “profane;” but, the context does not make clear whichnuance is intended.In the MT, words written with a period between them represent oneHebrew word. For instance, the Hebrew word Mwht tehom (1:2) means adeep sea and will be represented by “Deep.sea” in the MT but will bewritten as “deep sea” in the RMT.The English translation chosen for each Hebrew word was chosen basedon two criteria. First the translation had to be close in meaning to theHebrew (although keep in mind the dictionary will more precisely definethis word) and secondly it was to be a unique word that was not used forany other word. As an example, the Hebrew words Mwq qum and Mwrrum both mean to “raise” so the meaning of “rise” has been assigned toMwq qum and “raise” to Mwr rum. 12
Mechanical Translation of Genesis - IntroductionMost Hebrew words can be used in a literal or figurative applicationwhich will usually be defined by the context it is used. For instance, theword hand can literally refer to the hand as in 22:6. But, this same wordis used in 9:2 figuratively to mean “at hand” or “in possession.”While the RMT strives to translate each Hebrew word exactly the sameway each time it appears, there will be times where the context of thepassage or English sentence structure will require the word to betranslated differently. For instance, in 4:25 the MT has the phrase “SeedOther Under.” The word “Other” can also be translated as “another” andthe word “Under” can also be translated as “in place of.” Therefore thisphrase is translated in the RMT as “another seed in place of.” Acomplete list of words with their alternate translations are available inAppendix C.Intensity of a word can be expressed by repeating a word in the Hebrewtext. For instance, in 7:19 the word “many” is repeated to express a“great many.” In these cases the RMT will translate the two words onlyonce and add the word “great” or other adjective to express this intensity.Questions are usually formed in the text by using such words as “what,”“where,” “if,” etc but, the Hebrew language can also form the text into aquestion by using the “interrogative hey” (in the Hebrew this isrepresented by the letter h h as a prefix and will be translated in the MTas “? ”). For instance, the phrase “Not He he did say” would betranslated in the RMT as “he did not say” but in 20:5 this phrase iswritten as “? Not He he did say” and is translated as “did he not say”in the RMT.A noun followed by a pronoun such as the “Hand him” in 3:22 wouldliterally be translated as “hand of him” but the RMT will translate this as“his hand.”Hebrew VerbsHebrew verbs can be easily identified by their prefixes or suffixesattached to the verb. Each verb will be preceded by did , will , had , ! or or followed by ing or ed. 13
Mechanical Translation of Genesis - IntroductionHebrew verbs have two tenses, perfect (a completed action, identified inthe MT with the prefix “did ”) and imperfect (an incomplete action,identified in the MT with the prefix “will ”). In addition, most Hebrewverbs will identify the number and gender of the subject of the verb. Asan example, the Hebrew verb rma amar is a verb meaning “to say” andis in the perfect tense and identifies the subject of the verb as firstperson, masculine singular. The MT will translate this verb as“he did say” and the RMT will translate it as “he said.” The Hebrewverb rmat tomer is again the verb meaning “to say” but is in theimperfect tense and identifies the subject of the verb as second person,masculine singular. The MT will translate this verb as “you will say”and the RMT will translate it as “you will say.”Hebrew verbs, whose tenses are related to action (completed andincomplete), must be converted to English verbs related to time (past,present and future) when being translated. In most cases the perfect tense(completed action) is translated into the past tense English verbs andimperfect tense (incomplete action) is translated into present or futuretense English verbs. However, in some cases this style of translating willnot accurately convey the meaning of the Hebrew. For instance, in 22:2the word “you(ms) did Love” is written in the perfect tense meaning acompleted action but, if translated into English as “you loved” (pasttense), it would imply that he was no longer loved. Therefore, in thisinstance, the verb will be translated as “you love” (present tense). Alsosee 29:5, 37:3 and 48:19 for other examples of this.When the prefix “and ” is added to a verb the tense is usually reversed.For instance, the verb “he will Say” would be translated in the RMT as“he will say” but the verb “and he will Say” will be translated in theRMT as “and he said.”The subject of the verb will usually follow the verb. For instance, barma amar av will be written in the MT as “he did say Father” andtranslated as “father said” in the RMT. In some cases the subject of theverb will precede the verb instead. This is the past perfect tense of theverb (see 3:13). When this occurs, the MT will use the prefix “had ”instead of “did .” 14
Mechanical Translation of Genesis - IntroductionEmphasis is often placed on a Hebrew verb by writing it twice. TheRMT will translate this verb once and add an adverb such as quickly,greatly, completely or surely before it.The Piel form of verbs, identified in the MT with the prefix “much ,” isan intensive form of the verb and is usually translated in the RMT withan adverb.Verb participles, identified by “ ing” in the MT, identifies an action orone of action. As an example, the participle “Feed-ing” may betranslated in the RMT as “feeding” (see 37:2) or “feeder” (one whofeeds, a shepherd or herdsman, see 13:7).Each Hebrew verb can be written with different moods and voices. Forexample, The active voice of the verb har ra’ah means to “see” but, thepassive voice, identified by the prefix “be ”, means “be seen” but istranslated as “appeared” in the RMT. As another example, the simplemood of the verb awb bo means to “come” but, the causative mood,identified by the prefix “make ”, means “make come” but, is translatedas “bring” in the RMT. A complete list of these verb translationalvariations are listed in appendix A.Hebrew genderAll Hebrew nouns are either masculine or feminine. The dictionary willidentify masculine nouns with [masc] and feminine nouns as [fem].Some nouns can be either masculine or feminine, called common nounsand will be identified with [com].All Hebrew pronouns will be translated as “he” or “she.” This mayappear strange at first as a word like “ground,” a feminine word, will beidentified as a “she” (see 4:12). This is an important issue as knowing thecorrect gender of a pronoun can influence interpretation. A classicexample is found in 4:7 where most translations read “.sin is crouchingat the door; its desire is for you.” It is usually assumed the word “its” isreferring to the word “sin” but, knowing that the word “sin” is a feminineword and “its” is a masculine pronoun we discover that the word “its”cannot be referring to the “sin.” 15
Mechanical Translation of Genesis - IntroductionHebrew genders should not be viewed in the same manner we viewgender. For instance the word “beast” is a feminine word and anypronoun associated with this word will be a “she” with no regard to theactual gender of the beast.Hebrew grammar uses the masculine form of nouns and pronouns for agroup of mixed genders. For instance, in 36:25 the “sons” (masculineplural) of Anah are identified as Dishon (a male) and Ahalivamah (afemale).Hebrew numbersThere are two different types of plurals in Hebrew, simple plural anddouble plural. The word “Hundred” is a singular word and refers to “onehundred.” The simple plural “Hundred s” refers to a number of hundredssuch as in the phrase “Three Hundred s” (this would be translated as“three hundred” in the RMT). When the same word is written in thedouble plural “Hundred s2,” its translation would be “two hundred.”When a Hebrew number is written in the simple plural form it ismultiplied by ten. For instance, the word “Three s” would mean thirty.The only exception is the plural form of ten (“Ten s”) which meanstwenty. 16
Mechanical Translation of GenesisThe Mechanical Translation of GenesisChapter 11:1 ָארץ ֶ ָּ וְּ אֵ ת ה in Summit he did Fatten “Elohiym[Powers]” At the Sky s2 and Atthe Land1:2 ֹלהים אֵ ת הַ ָּשמַ יִׁ ם ִׁ ֱ אשית בָּ ָּרא א ִׁ ְּב ֵר ֹלהים ִׁ ֱ ָארץ הָּ יְּ תָּ ה תֹהּו וָּ בֹהּו וְּ ח ֶֹשְך עַ ל פְּ נֵי ְּתהוֹם
The foundation to this translation is the Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible which defines each Hebrew word within the context of its etymological roots and the cultural background behind each word. The MT was created by examining each Hebrew word (which will often include one or more prefixes and su
