Isaiah 5:17

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kwrandolph
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Joined: Sun Sep 29, 2013 12:51 am

Re: Isaiah 5:17

Post by kwrandolph »

Avichai:
aavichai wrote:I'll answer just for the meaning of מדבר=שממה
for the other stuff, there is no point we will go back and forth
everyone will study his own way and sometimes we'll see things differently

for the מדבר in the meaning of שממה deserted place
(first - when you translate מדבר to desert, it has a reason, no? But I'm no expert in English, so that was just a thought)
This brings up the question: have you lived or spent any length of time in a desert?
aavichai wrote:just a few examples:
You need to be more careful with your roots.
aavichai wrote:Isiah 35:1
יששום מדבר וציה
The root listed for this verb is variously listed as שוש or שיש.
aavichai wrote:Isiah 64:9
ציון מדבר היתה ירושלם שממה
I found out what I did wrong in my electronic search.

Verses like this do not indicate that שממה and מדבר have the same meaning. Rather one is a noun, the other an adjective, and have different meanings.
aavichai wrote:Jeremiah 12:10
חלקת חמדתי למדבר שממה
Here שממה is an adjective, obviously then שממה ֹֹ≠ מדבר.
aavichai wrote:Joel 4:19
ואדום למדבר שממה
Same as above.
aavichai wrote:Job 38:26
מדבר לא אדם בו
In this verse, the parallelism indicates that ארץ = מדבר. Is that what you intended?
aavichai wrote:Psalms 107:33
ישם נהרות למדבר
The root for this verse is listed as שים.

One thing that typifies a desert is the presence of stinging and thorny plants. Goats can eat many of those plants. Sheep are little more picky. Cows and horses are also more picky.

There are two roots written as דבר, one meaning expression, the other refers to stinging or thorny. There are examples of מדבר that come from both roots.


Today there have been on and off showers all day, and yesterday. The winter rains have been pleasant. The ground is turning green as the grasses sprout between the cacti and under the trees. This afternoon we saw a rainbow. As the evening falls, there are still some clouds around, some of which are leaking water.

Before those of European descent came here, the Indians harvested fruits from the palms and saguaro cacti. The prickly pear will have pretty flowers later in the spring, but their fruits are full of seeds and have many tiny spines that are quite painful. The hawks and owls keep the populations of ground squirrels and rabbits under control. Packrats make their nests among the prickly pear, but they’re quite destructive, so we get rid of them. Quail with their tufted heads try to keep under trees and bushes as much as possible.

Before the white men came with their sheep and cattle, the grasses used to grow to a horse’s belly. Then in the winter the bison and antelope would come, and find good grazing. But the ranchers left their cattle on the land all year round, which killed the grasses. The grasses were replaced by sage and greasewood, which are not as edible.

Many of the trees and bushes have spines. The leaves on the ocotillos seldom grow larger than the spines that protect them. Some varieties of prickly pear grow stems, then the pads higher than what the javalinos (wild pigs) can reach don’t have as many spines. People don’t leave their pets out, because the bobcats, coyotes and occasional mountain lion like to eat them. At night, every now and then groups of coyotes get together to sing their choruses.

Cartoonists draw deserts as having a saguaro cactus next to a cow scull, but that’s not accurate. Saguaro usually start under a tree, usually a palo verde or mesquite (whose seeds are edible). There’s a 30 foot tall saguaro standing next to a 30 foot palo verde tree, just outside my window. The palo verde probably gave the saguaro its start.

The above is a picture of a desert. A real desert. Full of sharp things and thorns. People have lived there for thousands of years.

Karl W. Randolph.
kwrandolph
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Joined: Sun Sep 29, 2013 12:51 am

Re: Isaiah 5:17

Post by kwrandolph »

aavichai wrote:i address just some of your notes for the verses I brought
it seems that you try to find a way to contradict that in those verses the מדבר=שממה
Just because two words are used together doesn’t mean that they have the same definition.

In English there’s the couplet “thorns and thistles”—thistles don’t have thorns, but are an equally distasteful weed. The two words don’t have the same definition, rather augment the idea where they’re used together.

A couplet found in Hebrew is תהו ובהו. From other contexts, we can tell that תהו refers to “lifeless”, sometimes limited to no human life, other times to all life. בהו is used only three times, each time parallel to תהו, but each time with the idea of stillness, nothing moving. The two words do not have the same definition. As a couplet, the two words compliment each other to strengthen the idea presented.

Likewise, just because two words are used together doesn’t mean that they have the same definitions.
aavichai wrote:I wrote: "יששום מדבר וציה"
you wrote: The root listed for this verb is variously listed as שוש or שיש.

So what do you want to say about that
here the מדבר is the parallel of ציה
I thought you were talking about שממה in this verse.

Again, the two words to which you refer, have different definitions.
aavichai wrote:I wrote: ישם נהרות למדבר
You wrote: The root for this verse is listed as שים

again, so what if the root is שים
it is said that the rivers will be made to מדבר
in this context, the מדבר is a place with no water - ציה
check the chapter he continue with that idea also backwards
Again, in this verse, I understood it that you referred to שממה.

Where a river is constantly flowing, plants can’t get a root and grow. Where rivers have become wadis (arroyos) and water flow is only intermittent or rare, there one finds thorny and stinging plants, even trees, typical of a desert.

You still haven’t made your point.
aavichai wrote:so if you still trying to find a way to disprove that one of the meaning of מדבר is שממה then keep with your way.
I didn't see your notes contradict this meaning in the verses I brought

but like I said, anyone will study the Hebrew as he thinks is the right way.
You appear to be doing the same sort of sloppy lexicography that I first noticed in Gesenius, later also in BDB. I’ve been told that most modern dictionaries are still based on those two dictionaries. It was that sloppiness that led me to write my own dictionary for my own understanding of Tanakh. In the days before computer aided tools were available, I used not only dictionaries, but more importantly a concordance to see the contexts where words were actually used. I still use that paper concordance, but now use electronic tools as well. It’s from that careful analysis that I come to the conclusion that שממה ֹ≠ מדבר.

Karl W. Randolph.
kwrandolph
Posts: 1531
Joined: Sun Sep 29, 2013 12:51 am

Re: Isaiah 5:17

Post by kwrandolph »

aavichai wrote:When you see the word מדבר and ציה together
or you see "the rivers will be put to desert"
and you say "i thought we were talking about שממה"
you actually say that שממה can only be represented by the word שממה
and that's it - I don't agree with your view - but I'll go with it
If one is to deal with a subject, deal with the subject itself, don’t wander off into the wilderness of other subjects.
aavichai wrote:you forgot to mention
ציון מדבר היתה ירושלם שממה
here it is the obvious parallelism between מדבר and שממה
so think what you want
No, I deliberately didn’t mention it.

Seeing as מדבר has an idea close to the English “place of thorns and thistles”, the verse you quote can be translated as “Zion will become a place of thorns and thistles, and Jerusalem desolated.” The two words don’t have the same meaning.
aavichai wrote:you are right that not always "this & this" means that they are in the same meaning
it depends in the context
but if i see מדבר ציה וערבה it doesn't mean the the place is מדבר and it's also ציה and it's also ערבה
but it means that these three words have the same meaning in this context
and the reason they were put together is just to emphasize and not to add more facts.
there is no difference if I say מדבר or מדבר וציה or מדבר ציה וערבה except for the emphasizing.
The different words do add more facts. That’s why they’re used.
aavichai wrote:even though I don't agree with the way you interpret words I see you have a very sharp eye and mind
but I think you became addicted to the sharpness and forgot that literature is not mathematics
and when you threat literature as mathematics you take the spirit out of it and then your sharpness turns to be a disadvantage
it's what they say: for too many trees, you cannot see the forest
and with that, I wish you success in your dictionary and I hope it will be published
You need to see individual trees in order to recognize the forest. You need to see them in the context of the forest.

You can’t say that an oak is the same as an elm is the same as a hickory is the same as a sassafras, etc. just because they are all in the same forest. Similarly, you can’t say that just because different words are used in similar contexts, that they have the same meanings. You can say that the forest mentioned above is a hardwood forest, because all the trees mentioned are hardwoods. Similarly, the use of certain words can identify the general context, but that doesn’t make different words to have the same meaning.

Thanks for the good wishes.

Karl W. Randolph.
Jemoh66
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Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:03 pm

Re: Isaiah 5:17

Post by Jemoh66 »

Aavichai and Karl,

It seems like you guys are talking past each other to some extent. Karl I agree with you a midbar is basically a prairie. I also agree that "thorns and thistles" is a good translation for מדבר. To add to this discussion I would point out that "thorns and thistles" is both a metonymy and a type of tautology. Aavichai, a metonymy is when two things put together actually mean one thing, for example, heaven and earth or tohu vavohu. In the case of heaven and earth you have the idea of all that exists. With tohu vavohu you have something akin to "thorns and thistles" because you have the added musicality or phonetic similarity. Now Karl, when we say thorns and thistles it's precisely because we think of them as synonymous, a kind of repetition for emphasis.

Furthermore, when you translate ציון מדבר היתה ירושלם שממה as Zion will be thorns and thistles...Jerusalem will be desolate, you are turning the whole line into a tautology precisely because thorns and thistles are being emphasized with the use of desolate in a tautological way. Aavichai, you are correct in drawing out the parallelism of the two phrases, but desolate is more severe than thorns and thistles, or shemamah is more severe than midbar.
Jonathan E Mohler
Studying for a MA in Intercultural Studies
Baptist Bible Theological Seminary
kwrandolph
Posts: 1531
Joined: Sun Sep 29, 2013 12:51 am

Re: Isaiah 5:17

Post by kwrandolph »

aavichai wrote:I don't say to not look at the trees
but all you do is just that
without looking at the forest
you need to do both
I’m amused by this claim on your part. I, more than anyone else in this group, have said “Look at the context.” Looking at the context is “…looking at the forest”.

But to you I say, not all forests are alike. You need to recognize the individual trees in the forest in order to recognize the type of forest.
aavichai wrote:we can go for a whole year and more with this non-stop replying
I respect your views - still don't agree with it
In this group, we have the policy of “agree to disagree”.

I cannot agree to your sloppy lexicography.

I cannot agree to your collapsing contexts.

You don’t agree to my careful work. I agonize over the uses of words, to get as close to accurate meanings to list in my dictionary as I can.

Since we can’t agree, we then “agree to disagree” and stop the discussion. At present, that appears to be action we should take.

Karl W. Randolph.
kwrandolph
Posts: 1531
Joined: Sun Sep 29, 2013 12:51 am

Re: Isaiah 5:17

Post by kwrandolph »

aavichai wrote:It seems like you're kinda angry more than amused.
From where do you get that idea?
aavichai wrote:**About the lexicography and your accurate work

A man that writes a Hebrew dictionary by understanding the bible literally cannot talk about sloppiness

Any literature, never mind if it's the bible, Shakespeare, or 20ct story or 21ct poetry, uses words and sentences in a way that is not just literal.
A literal reading of the text has no problem with that, because there are clues in the literal text for when words are used in a non-literal way.

It’s when one doesn’t read the text literally, that he misses those clues, or reads what’s supposed to be literal in a non-literal way.
aavichai wrote:secondly, you isolate the Hebrew from the other languages of that area or from its "family",
like the Hebrew was developed inside a bubble with no relations to other languages
and you excuse that by saying that it can deceive sometimes, and so you decide to ignore them almost completely
in that way of work, You miss a lot of reasonable definitions that you can't see alone.
It’s possible to master English without learning German, French, or even a closer to English language like Norwegian.

The correct definitions to over 99% of Biblical Hebrew words can be recognized from their uses within Hebrew itself, there’s no need to reference cognate languages to recognize their definitions.

The hard part about writing a dictionary is giving English definitions that are both accurate and understandable.

Karl W. Randolph.
Isaac Fried
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Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 8:32 pm

Re: Isaiah 5:17

Post by Isaac Fried »

Avichai says

and some say that
ידבר עמים תחתינו
ידבר עמים תחתי
is from that root

Says I

Yes, he is right. It was already mentioned here before that the root דבר is but a member of the root family
דבר, זבר, טבר, יבר, סבר, צבר, שבר, תבר
טפר, ספר, צפר, שפר, תפר
צואר
epitomized by צבר, 'accumulate, aggregate, gather'.
From the root דבר we have לְדַבֵּר, 'to speak, to string words into meaningful sentences', actually לְצַבֵּר דברים. Also דּוֹבְרָה, 'raft', actually a bound accumulation of cut trees, צוֹבְרָה של עצים, to float and tow on the water. Is DOBRAH a loan word? Certainly yes. Every word is a loan word, one family "loaning" good and useful words to another family living next to it.
There is no doubt in my mind that מִדְבָּר, 'desert', is also but a מִצְבָּר of some sort, but of what, of earth and stones, of sheep?
Likewise, הדברה is but הצברה of dead, or submitting, bodies.

Isaac Fried, Boston University
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