H6963

• {"n":"Psalm 19:4","s":"Their line is gone out through all the earth. Paul quotes it in Romans 10:18 as their voice, or sound.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=psalm-19-4","r":"Psalm 19:4","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"The Hebrew Masoretic Text reads their line, kav, has gone out. The Septuagint, and Paul quoting it at Romans 10:18, reads their voice or sound has gone out, following Greek phthongos."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"English line and voice are entirely different words describing entirely different things, a measuring cord versus a sound. The Hebrew word here, qav, line, and the Greek word Paul quotes, phthongos, sound, look close enough in Hebrew consonants, qavam versus qolam, that the difference could be an old textual variant rather than a loose paraphrase."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Qav, line or measuring cord, and qol, voice or sound, are close enough in Hebrew spelling, qavam versus qolam, that some scholars propose the Septuagint's translators worked from a manuscript that actually read qolam, voice, rather than qavam, line, a genuine textual variant rather than a free translation choice. Others read it as an interpretive extension, since a cord can also mean a musical string, and a string produces a sound."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English readers of Romans 10:18 meet voice or sound with no indication that the Old Testament passage being quoted, in most English Bibles' Old Testament translation, actually says line, a visibly different word, leaving the connection between the two texts looking looser than it may actually be."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"A New Testament quotation that uses a noticeably different word than your English Old Testament translation is worth checking against the Septuagint. It may reflect a genuine textual variant in the underlying Hebrew consonants rather than loose paraphrase."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"Line, following the Masoretic Text, pictures a measuring cord stretched across creation, marking out its extent. Voice or sound, following the Septuagint and Paul's quotation, pictures creation's silent testimony as itself a kind of speech, the reading Paul's argument in Romans 10 needs to make its point about creation preaching to all nations."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05e7\u05b7\u05d5 qav (line) \/ \u05e7\u05d5\u05b9\u05dc qol (voice) \u00b7 H6957 \/ H6963"}],"src":["Septuagint phthongos, sound, at Psalm 19:4 (18:5 LXX)","Paul's quotation at Romans 10:18","qav\/qol's close consonantal similarity as the likely source of the variant"]}
• {"n":"Psalm 29","s":"The voice of the LORD, seven times. A storm-theophany pattern closely paralleling Ugaritic hymns to the storm-god Baal.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=psalm-29","r":"Psalm 29:1-11","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Every version translates the storm imagery accurately, but nothing in translation signals that scholars widely read this psalm's form and content as adapted from, or directly answering, Canaanite storm-god hymnody rather than composed from scratch."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"Imagine a national anthem that turns out to be a rewritten version of a rival nation's anthem, with only the name changed. Scholars argue Psalm 29 may be doing something similar: taking an existing hymn celebrating the Canaanite storm-god's thunder and applying its praise to the LORD instead, asserting that the real storm-god is Israel's God, not Baal."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"The voice of the LORD, qol YHWH, recurs seven times through the psalm's central section, describing a storm moving from the sea across Lebanon and Sirion, breaking cedars, shaking the wilderness, a pattern closely resembling the seven thunders associated with Baal in Ugaritic poetry. Some scholars, following Harold Ginsberg's influential proposal, read Psalm 29 as an older Canaanite hymn to Baal repurposed for the LORD by simply replacing the divine name, a deliberate theological claim that the LORD, not Baal, truly commands the storm."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English readers experience the psalm as vivid nature poetry describing a thunderstorm; without the Ugaritic comparative background, the psalm's likely polemical purpose, directly answering and displacing Canaanite Baal worship by claiming his own signature imagery for the LORD, is invisible."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"When a psalm's imagery closely parallels attested material from a neighboring ancient culture, read the parallel as potentially polemical, a claim about whose god really controls the phenomenon in question, rather than as coincidental shared nature imagery."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"Reading Psalm 29 as an original Israelite composition treats its storm imagery as independently inspired praise poetry. Reading it as an adapted Canaanite hymn, following the comparative Ugaritic evidence, treats the whole psalm as a pointed theological claim, this storm belongs to the LORD, not Baal, embedded in Israel's own hymnbook."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05e7\u05d5\u05b9\u05dc \u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05d5\u05b8\u05d4 qol YHWH (voice of the LORD, sevenfold) \u00b7 H6963"}],"src":["Harold Ginsberg's identification of Psalm 29 with Ugaritic Baal-hymn material","John Day on the sevenfold 'voice of the LORD' paralleling Baal's seven thunders","Theodor Gaster's proposal of direct Canaanite-to-Israelite adaptation"]}