H7651

• {"n":"Genesis 7:2","s":"By sevens, seven and seven. The Hebrew just repeats the numeral; English has to add a preposition to get the same sense.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=genesis-7-2","r":"Genesis 7:2","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Every version reads by sevens or seven pairs, correctly, for clean animals, against two, two of a kind, three verses earlier at 6:19-20 for animals generally. Read carelessly in translation, the two instructions look like a straightforward contradiction; read together, sevens for the animals fit for sacrifice, twos as the baseline for every kind, they resolve as one instruction refining the other rather than clashing with it."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"Hebrew can say a distributive the way a coach says **two, two, two**, walking down a line splitting people into pairs. Just repeat the number. English cannot do this without inserting a word like **by** or **each**, so shivah shivah becomes by sevens, a translation that adds a word the Hebrew never needed."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Shivah shivah, literally seven seven, is simple reduplication of the numeral used to express a distributive sense, seven of each. Hebrew forms distributives this way elsewhere, repeating a number or a noun rather than adding a preposition, a pattern with no direct grammatical equivalent in English syntax."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English has no bare-repetition distributive; two two on its own does not read as a grammatical construction the way shivah shivah does in Hebrew, so translators must supply by or each, adding a word that has no counterpart in the Hebrew text itself."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"When you meet a doubled Hebrew word functioning as one grammatical unit, check whether it is marking a distributive sense before assuming it is simple emphasis, and read instructions that seem to conflict across nearby verses as a single set of directions before assuming a contradiction."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"By sevens is the correct and unavoidable English rendering, and no version disputes it. The apparent tension with the two-of-a-kind instruction at 6:19-20 is a matter of reading both verses as one coherent set of instructions, sevens for clean animals headed for sacrifice, twos as the general rule, rather than a genuine grammatical problem."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05e9\u05b4\u05c1\u05d1\u05b0\u05e2\u05b8\u05d4 \u05e9\u05b4\u05c1\u05d1\u05b0\u05e2\u05b8\u05d4 shivah shivah \u00b7 H7651"}],"src":["The parallel two-of-a-kind instruction: Genesis 6:19-20","Clean animals used in sacrifice immediately after the flood: Genesis 8:20","Distributive reduplication as a recognized Biblical Hebrew numeral pattern: standard Hebrew grammars"]}