H4943

• {"n":"Genesis 15:2","s":"The steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus. A rare word, ben-meshek, that nobody fully agrees on.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=genesis-15-2","r":"Genesis 15:2","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Most versions read steward of my house or heir of my house, smoothing the phrase into a clear English office. A few older or more literal renderings preserve more of the Hebrew's actual strangeness."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"Imagine a legal document naming an heir with a title so unusual that lawyers today still argue whether it means owner, manager, or errand-runner. That is roughly the situation with ben-meshek here, a phrase modern translations gloss confidently while quietly disagreeing about what it actually names."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Ben-meshek is unusual enough that proposals range from son of acquisition, meaning the one who will inherit, to a verb related to running about in service, to reading meshek as a proper name, Masek, making Eliezer the son of a servant woman by that name rather than a household title at all. Many scholars additionally note that ben-meshek was likely chosen partly for its assonance with the following word, Dammesek, Damascus, a wordplay layered on top of an already rare and difficult phrase."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English steward reads as a clear, ordinary job title; the Hebrew phrase behind it is contested enough that no single English word can represent the genuine uncertainty scholars still have about what ben-meshek names."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"When a translation reads smoothly and confidently, check whether the underlying Hebrew is actually that clear. A fluent English rendering can paper over real uncertainty that specialists are still debating."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"Steward or heir of my house gives English readers a working sense of the passage without pretending to settle a genuinely contested phrase. No consensus exists on ben-meshek's precise force, and every translation is making a judgment call the Hebrew itself does not fully support."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05d1\u05b6\u05bc\u05df\u05be\u05de\u05b6\u05e9\u05b6\u05c1\u05e7 \u05d1\u05b5\u05bc\u05d9\u05ea\u05b4\u05d9 ben-meshek beythi \u00b7 H1121 + H4943"}],"src":["The proposed assonance with Dammesek, Damascus: noted in Jewish Bible Quarterly and standard commentaries","Alternative readings, heir\/owner vs. a servant's proper name Masek: surveyed in major Genesis commentaries"]}