LIST110b
(C) Dr Hendel, Jan-04
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List of phrases in Nu23-21a,b,c,d--GOD IS WITH US
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PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT*10
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BIBLICAL TEXT
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God overlooks error*1
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God didnt see iniquity in Jacob
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God overlooks deliberate sin
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God didnt see toil-sin *1
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God is with us*2
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God is with us*2
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God rejoices with us
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Trumpet blast of King with us*3
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COMMENTS
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*1 We READ INTO THE TEXT development
- INIQUITY = TRANSIENT sin
- TOIL = DELIBERATE sin that you work on
Here we follow the rule *10 of THEME 1st; MEANING 2nd
*2 This is the THEME sentence--the basic idea of the poetic
passage
*3 Of course TRUMPET BLAST is a sign of REJOICING.
Note Rashi states
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The Hebrew TERUAH is the language of RAYAH, FRIENDSHIP
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Rashi seems to be saying
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Root TERUAH comes from root RAYAH, Friendship!
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Not so! Rashi really believes
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TERUAH here has its USUAL Meaning of TRUMPET BLASTS
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So Rashi is really saying
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TRUMPET BLASTS is the language of FRIENDSHIP
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In other words Rashi was not talking about
- deriving GRAMMATICAL root of TERUAH from RAYAH
Rather Rashi was talking about
- deriving SEMANTIC MEANING of Teruah(Trumpet)
from RAYAH(friendship)
This distinction between
- GRAMMATICAL FORM
- SEMANTIC MEANING
is fundamental to understanding Rashi.
Know and Understand it.
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LONGER FOOTNOTES
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*10
Most of the meaning of a poetic passage
can be obtained by using the following simple techniques
- BULLET the phrases in the poetic passage
- What is the MAIN THEME of the passage
- How SHOULD that MAIN theme DEVELOP
- What phrases seem to coincide with this DEVELOPMENT
- Interpret the other phrases using the NEEDED DEVELOPMENT
Another way to look at this is to differentiate between
POETRY and PROSE.
- In PROSE we FIRST interpret the words and then combine
the words into sentences
- In POETRY we FIRST identify the sentences with the
main theme and then interpert the words based on the main them.
Using this basic approach of the
- THEME sentence
- SENTENCE 1st, WORDS 2nd
greatly facilitates the translation of a poetic passage.
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- God did not see iniquity in Jacob
- and did not see toil in Israel
- The God their Lord is with them
- The Trumpet blast of the King is with them
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Following the outline above BULLET the phrases.
Each separate sentence is a separate BULLET.
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- God did not see iniquity in Jacob
- and did not see toil in Israel
- The God their Lord is with them
- The Trumpet blast of the King is with them
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Next we identify the MAIN THEME
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- THE GOD THEIR LORD IS WITH THEM
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Next we must identify: How SHOULD the MAIN THEME DEVELOP
I think the following ideas reasonable
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- GOD IS WITH US
- God rejoices with us
- God overlooks errors and forgives sin
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Finally we follow the idea of
- THEME 1st
- MEANING 2nd!
That is we read this DEVELOPMENT into the Biblical text.
Here is the alignment of PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT vs TEXT
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PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT BIBLICAL TEXT
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- God overlooks error God didnt see iniquity
- God overlooks deliberate sin God didnt see toil-sin
- God is with us God is with us
- God rejoices with us Trumpet blast of King with us
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