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.
Psalm 105:18
The iron entered into his soul. The Hebrew more literally reads his soul came into iron, a difficult phrase ancient translators handled differently.
Psalm 105:18, in every translation this tool compares.
English the iron entered into his soul is now a familiar idiom for deep inner anguish, but it is also a slightly unusual translation choice: the Hebrew word order more literally has his soul entering iron, not the other way around, a small but real difference ancient translators noticed and handled in at least three different ways.
Because the Hebrew literally reads his soul came into iron, an unusual, difficult phrase ancient translators rendered in several different directions before it settled into the now-famous English idiom the iron entered into his soul, a phrase whose familiar English meaning may go beyond what the difficult Hebrew actually specifies.
Most versions read some form of describing Joseph's affliction in prison, his feet hurt with fetters, his neck or person constrained by iron, with varying degrees of literalness about the famous his soul entered iron phrase.
בַּרְזֶל בָּאָה נַפְשׁוֹ barzel ba'ah naphsho (his soul came into iron) · H1270 + H935 + H5315
The Hebrew reads nephesh, soul, life, or person, as entering into iron, backward from the more intuitive image of iron entering a person. The Syriac keeps this direction, his soul went into iron; the Aramaic Targum reverses it, the chain of iron went into his soul; the widely beloved English phrase, the iron entered into his soul, popularized through the Book of Common Prayer, follows the Targum's reversed direction rather than the more literal Hebrew word order.
English readers who know the phrase the iron entered into his soul as a beautiful, familiar idiom for suffering may not realize the phrase's exact grammatical direction was already being debated and reversed by ancient translators, since the literal Hebrew has the person entering the iron, not the iron entering the person.
When a beloved, idiomatic English Bible phrase sounds too poetically perfect to be a plain translation, check its actual grammatical direction against the Hebrew. Some of the most famous English biblical phrases, like this one, already represent an ancient interpretive choice rather than a purely literal rendering.
His soul entered into iron, closer to the literal Hebrew word order, pictures Joseph's whole self being absorbed into confinement. The iron entered into his soul, the beloved reversed idiom following the Targum, pictures suffering piercing inward instead, the version that became proverbial in English despite reversing the Hebrew's own direction.
- Syriac Peshitta keeping the Hebrew's direction, 'his soul went into iron'
- Aramaic Targum reversing it, 'the chain of iron went into his soul'
- The Book of Common Prayer popularizing the reversed English idiom
