H3173

• {"n":"Genesis 22:2","s":"Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac. Abraham already has another living son, Ishmael.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=genesis-22-2","r":"Genesis 22:2","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Every version reads only son, following the Hebrew word choice, and most add whom thou lovest in the same verse, both details English readers often smooth over rather than noticing the apparent contradiction with Ishmael's earlier birth."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"English **only** usually means a headcount: one and no more. Hebrew yachid can mean that, but it can also mean unique, singular, one of a kind, closer to **irreplaceable** than to a strict arithmetic count, which matters here because the count does not actually work."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Yachid, only, unique, or solitary, is used elsewhere of someone singularly precious rather than strictly the sole member of a category, closer in force to beloved or irreplaceable. By the time of this chapter Ishmael has been sent away with Hagar at Genesis 21:14 and does not appear again in Abraham's household narrative, so Isaac functions, within the covenant storyline the text is tracking, as the only son who matters for the promise, even though he is not literally Abraham's only child."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English only defaults to a strict numerical claim, and a careful reader who remembers Ishmael's birth two chapters earlier will notice what looks like an outright error, when the Hebrew word itself has a broader, more relational range that does not require a literal headcount."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"If a Hebrew word that looks like a strict factual claim, only, all, every, produces an apparent contradiction with known facts elsewhere in the same book, check whether its range includes a relational or covenantal sense broader than the strict English equivalent."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"Only son, read as a strict count, creates a real tension with Ishmael's continued existence. Only son, read as beloved, unique, or the son who carries the covenant, resolves the tension without requiring any textual correction, and fits yachid's attested range elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05d9\u05b8\u05d7\u05b4\u05d9\u05d3 yachid \u00b7 H3173"}],"src":["Ishmael sent away with Hagar: Genesis 21:14","yachid used of a singularly precious child elsewhere: Judges 11:34, of Jephthah's daughter, his only child","The same lech-lecha construction as Genesis 12:1 opens this verse's command"]}