H6763

• {"n":"Genesis 2:21-22","s":"One of his ribs. The same word names the side chambers of the tabernacle everywhere else.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=genesis-2-21-22","r":"Genesis 2:21-22","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Every major English version reads rib. A minority of scholars and some newer study notes argue for side, but no widely used translation has switched, so rib remains the reading every reader meets."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"**He built a shelf from one board.** **He built an addition onto the side of the house.** One is a single piece; the other is a whole section. The word behind rib usually means the second kind of thing: a side, a flank, a chamber."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Tsela occurs forty-one times in thirty-two verses. Only these two, Genesis 2:21-22, are ever rendered rib. Everywhere else, the tabernacle's side chambers and boards at Exodus 25:12 and 26:26-27, the temple's side chambers at 1 Kings 6:5, 34, even a hillside at 2 Samuel 16:13, it is side, side chamber, board, or slope. The single-bone reading rests on these two verses alone."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English rib names one specific bone; English side is broad enough to mean a flank, a section, or a chamber. The Hebrew word defaults to the broad sense everywhere except here, and only the traditional reading of this one story keeps the narrow sense attached to it in English."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"When a word is translated one way in exactly two verses and a completely different way everywhere else, check what is driving the outlier. Sometimes it is genuine context; sometimes it is a translation tradition nobody has revisited."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"Rib keeps four hundred years of English reading and the picture most people carry of the story. Side follows the word's overwhelming usage elsewhere and reads the operation as taking a whole section, not extracting a single bone. The Hebrew consonants support either; the tradition has settled on the rarer sense."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05e6\u05b5\u05dc\u05b8\u05e2 tsela \u00b7 H6763"}],"src":["Forty-one occurrences in thirty-two verses; side or side chamber elsewhere: Exodus 25:12; 26:26-27; 1 Kings 6:5, 34; hillside at 2 Samuel 16:13","Septuagint renders it pleura, side or rib, at Genesis 2:21-22, carrying the same ambiguity into Greek"]}