H2803

• {"n":"Genesis 15:6b","s":"He counted it to him for righteousness. The verb belongs in a ledger.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=genesis-15-6b","r":"Genesis 15:6","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"The King James reads counted. Modern versions read credited, reckoned or counted. Romans 4 uses the Greek equivalent eleven times in one chapter."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"**Put it on my account.** That is a statement about a ledger, not about the truth of anything. Whether the entry reflects what is in your pocket is a separate question from whether the entry was made."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Chashav means to think, to plan, and also to reckon or impute in the bookkeeping sense. The Septuagint renders it logizomai, which is likewise an accounting verb, and that is the word Paul repeats through Romans 4. Two languages, the same commercial metaphor, deliberately kept."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English credited carries the accounting sense well. Reckoned has drifted toward supposed. Counted sits between them and is what the King James chose."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"When the Septuagint picks a Greek word in the same semantic field as the Hebrew, that is a translator two thousand years ago telling you what he heard. Those choices are evidence."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"No real dispute about the verb. What the accounting metaphor implies theologically is a separate and much older argument, and the verb does not settle it."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05d7\u05b8\u05e9\u05b7\u05c1\u05d1 chashav \u00b7 H2803"}],"src":["chashav in the reckoning sense: Leviticus 7:18; 17:4; 2 Samuel 19:19","Septuagint logizomai here; the same verb eleven times in Romans 4","Psalm 32:2 uses chashav the same way and Paul quotes it at Romans 4:8"]}
• {"n":"Genesis 50:20","s":"Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good. The same verb, chashav, reckon, used of Abraham's faith at 15:6.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=genesis-50-20","r":"Genesis 50:20","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Every version reads meant or intended, both reasonable general translations that lose the more technical, ledger-like flavor chashav carries, and its earlier, weightier use at 15:6."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"English think and mean are ordinary, general verbs. Hebrew chashav is closer to an accountant's word, to reckon or calculate a value, and the same word used of God crediting Abraham's faith as righteousness earlier in Genesis is used twice in this one sentence, once for the brothers' malicious calculation, once for God's redemptive one."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Chashavtem alai ra'ah, chashvah l'tovah, you reckoned against me evil, He reckoned it for good, repeats the same root twice with opposite objects in one verse, the very verb rendered counted at Genesis 15:6, where the LORD counted Abraham's faith as righteousness. The whole Joseph narrative, and in a sense the whole patriarchal history Genesis has been tracking, closes on the same accounting vocabulary it used to describe the foundational moment of Abraham's faith."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English think and mean are colorless, general-purpose verbs; they do not preserve the specific, weighted accounting sense that ties Joseph's closing statement back to Abraham's reckoned faith fourteen chapters and several generations earlier in the same book."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"When a book's final major statement repeats a rare or theologically loaded verb from earlier in the same book, read the recurrence as a deliberate bookend, not a coincidence of common vocabulary. Chashav's return here closes a loop opened at 15:6."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"Meant or intended captures the sentence's plain sense, and every version agrees on that much. What matters is the specific word choice, chashav, which ties Joseph's closing theological statement about providence directly back to Abraham's reckoned faith, a connection no English synonym preserves."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05d7\u05b8\u05e9\u05b7\u05c1\u05d1 chashav \u00b7 H2803"}],"src":["The same verb at Genesis 15:6, God reckoning Abraham's faith as righteousness","chashav's accounting\/ledger sense: standard Hebrew lexicons"]}