H2015

• {"n":"Genesis 3:24","s":"A flaming sword which turned every way. The verb form says the sword turns itself.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=genesis-3-24","r":"Genesis 3:24","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Every version reads some form of turning, flashing, or whirling. None can mark, without an added phrase, that the Hebrew verb form itself specifies the sword is the one doing the turning, to itself, continuously."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"English can say **self-turning** or **a sword that kept turning on its own**, but it takes extra words to say it. Hebrew builds the same reflexive idea, something happening to itself, directly into one verb form, no extra word needed."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Hammithhapeket is a hitpael participle from haphak, to turn or overturn; the hitpael stem regularly marks reflexive or reciprocal action, something happening to or by the subject itself. The sword is not turned by an unnamed hand; the grammar makes it the agent of its own continuous turning, guarding the way to the tree of life on its own."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English marks reflexive action with a separate word, self- or itself, or with a whole clause. Hebrew can fold that same sense into the verb's own form, so a single participle does work that English needs extra vocabulary to do, and translations regularly drop the reflexive nuance rather than add the extra words."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"The hitpael stem is one of the places Hebrew grammar itself carries meaning with no one-word English equivalent. When you meet it, ask what would need to be added in English to say the same thing, and notice that the Hebrew needed nothing added."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"No real translation dispute over turned every way as a general sense. The finer point, that the grammar specifies self-turning rather than being turned by something else, is a detail every version states, if at all, with an added phrase rather than showing where it lives in the single Hebrew word."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05de\u05b4\u05ea\u05b0\u05d4\u05b7\u05e4\u05b6\u05bc\u05db\u05b6\u05ea mithhapeket (\u05d4\u05b8\u05e4\u05b7\u05da\u05b0 haphak) \u00b7 H2015"}],"src":["Hitpael as reflexive\/reciprocal stem: standard treatment in Biblical Hebrew grammars, including Waltke and O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax","Cherubim guarding both Eden and the tabernacle's inner sanctuary: Exodus 25:18-20; 1 Kings 6:23-28"]}