H6389

• {"n":"Genesis 10:25","s":"In his days was the earth divided. His name, Peleg, means division.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=genesis-10-25","r":"Genesis 10:25","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Every version reads Peleg as a name and divided as a separate statement, correctly, but with no way to show an English reader that the name itself is the Hebrew word for divided."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"Imagine a chronicle naming a child **Splitter** the same year a kingdom splits in two, and stating outright that the timing is the point. Genesis does this routinely, and English transliteration, Peleg as a bare name, hides the built-in explanation every time."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Peleg is built directly on the verb palag, to divide or split, the same root behind the noun for a water channel or stream at Psalm 1:3 and Job 38:25, and behind the request confuse, divide their tongues at Psalm 55:9, itself a probable echo of the Babel story two verses later in Genesis. What exactly divided in Peleg's days, the population by language at Babel, or a more literal geological or geographic division, is debated, but the naming device itself is the same one Genesis has already used three times before this chapter."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English Peleg is a bare proper name carrying no built-in meaning, so the sentence in his days was the earth divided reads as a coincidence of timing rather than as the name itself supplying the explanation, which is how the Hebrew presents it."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"When Genesis names a person immediately before or after describing a major event, assume the name is doing explanatory work until proven otherwise; this book uses that device more often than any other in the Hebrew Bible."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"Every version simply transliterates Peleg as a name, with no dispute about that. What exactly was divided, languages at Babel or something more literal and geographic, is a separate and genuinely open question the naming pun itself does not settle."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05e4\u05b6\u05bc\u05dc\u05b6\u05d2 Peleg (\u05e4\u05b8\u05bc\u05dc\u05b7\u05d2 palag, to divide) \u00b7 H6389"}],"src":["palag as divide, used of water channels: Psalm 1:3; Job 38:25","The same root requested of God at Psalm 55:9, 'confuse, divide their tongues,' likely echoing Babel"]}