Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
panim
Face, presence. Plural in form, and used of God constantly.
Exodus 33:14, in every translation this tool compares.
Scissors. Trousers. English has plural nouns for single objects and nobody notices. Hebrew does it with face.
Because the word is plural in Hebrew and singular in meaning, and because the presence of God is literally the face of God, which is what makes the request in Exodus 33 as bold as it is.
Versions read face, presence, or before according to the preposition it sits in.
פָּנִים panim · H6440
Panim is plural in form throughout. It means face, and by extension presence, and it forms a large family of prepositions: before, in front of, because of. My presence shall go with thee is my face.
English separates face and presence, so a request to see God's face reads differently from a request for his presence, when they are one noun.
Hebrew builds many of its prepositions out of body parts. Knowing the noun underneath explains the preposition.
Face and presence are both majority renderings in their own contexts.
- panim as presence: Exodus 33:14-15
- the bread of the presence, literally bread of the face: Exodus 25:30
- Numbers 6:25-26, the LORD make his face shine
