H727

• {"n":"Genesis 50:26","s":"He was put in a coffin in Egypt. The Hebrew word, aron, is the same word later used for the Ark of the Covenant.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=genesis-50-26","r":"Genesis 50:26","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Every version reads coffin, correctly, since English has no reason to use the same word it will later use for the Ark of the Covenant, severing a connection the Hebrew text itself preserves by repeating the identical noun."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"English keeps coffin and ark as entirely separate words, one for the dead, one for the sacred. Hebrew aron names both a burial box and the gold-covered chest holding the covenant tablets, the very same noun doing both jobs, so Genesis closes with a word it will not fully cash in until Exodus and beyond."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Aron names Joseph's coffin here, the very first occurrence of the word anywhere in the Bible, and the same word later names the Ark of the Covenant carrying the tablets of the law through the wilderness. Jewish tradition already noticed the parallel: two arons traveled with Israel through the wilderness, one holding the bones of the dead Joseph, the other holding the covenant of the living God, Joseph's own bones eventually carried out of Egypt at the Exodus and buried in the promised land."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English coffin and ark share no sound or spelling at all, so the deliberate closing image, Genesis ending on the same word its sequel will use for its most sacred object, is entirely invisible without knowing the underlying Hebrew noun is identical in both cases."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"Pay attention to a book's very last word as carefully as its first. Genesis opens with bereshit, a word already carrying interpretive weight, and closes with aron, a word that will not detonate its full significance until much later in the story, a deliberate structural echo across the whole Torah."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"Coffin is the correct sense here, and no version renders it otherwise. What matters is the word's later, much weightier reuse for the Ark of the Covenant, a connection built entirely into the Hebrew vocabulary, invisible the moment English gives the two objects two different names."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05d0\u05b8\u05e8\u05d5\u05b9\u05df aron \u00b7 H727"}],"src":["aron for the Ark of the Covenant: Deuteronomy 10:5; Exodus 25:10-22","Joseph's bones carried out at the Exodus: Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32","Jewish tradition noting the parallel of the two arons in the wilderness"]}