שלום in Jeremiah 4:10

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

שלום in Jeremiah 4:10

Post by kwrandolph »

Most of the time שלום is mistranslated as “peace” (that may be its meaning in Aramaic and post-Biblical Hebrew, but not Biblical Hebrew). Looking at the verbal root and its derivatives we find:

‎שלם to make whole, to fill in what was lacking, to fulfill (curses, promises ⇒ to give settlement both pleasing and displeasing) ⇒ to repay, pay back → שלום fullness Ez 7:25 (though this word is often translated as “peace”, the antonym of מלחמה, that is not accurate. The absence of war, שקט is, however, a prerequisite for it.), שלום paying back, giving retribution Is 34:8, Mc 7:3, שלמה whole ⇒ proper size Dt 25:15, Pr 11:1, complete(ness) Am 1:6, 9, Rt 2:12, So 1:7, שלמן kickback, an under the table payment to smooth the way in business Hs 10:14 αλ, שלמת fullness ⇒ end, what comes when all is fulfilled Ps 91:8

The context of Jeremiah 4:10 appears to be one of judgment and punishment, hence it seems to be an example of where שלום means “retribution” or “payback” rather than “fullness, completeness”.

What do you all think? Are there other clues that I may have missed?

Karl W. Randolph.
S_Walch
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Re: שלום in Jeremiah 4:10

Post by S_Walch »

I have no objections to understand Jer 4:10 as meaning "retribution" rather than "peace", even if the LXX does translate שלום as ειρηνη.

However interestingly, LXX omits reading לכם after יהיה, and just reads Ειρηνη εσται ("There shall be peace").
Ste Walch
Michael W Abernathy
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Joined: Thu Jan 09, 2014 8:38 pm

Re: שלום in Jeremiah 4:10

Post by Michael W Abernathy »

Karl,
I find your argument hard to follow because you argue context without showing the context.
The typical translation comes out something like,
And he said “Alas, Lord YHWH surely you have led this people and Israel astray saying there will be peace to you and a sword is pressed against the throat.”
In this context, "peace" is expressed as the opposite of what the speaker sees. If you see something different, it would help if you gave your translation for the complete verse.
By the way, how are you studying the context? I prefer syntactic analysis. I find that it helps distinguish between opposing interpretations of what the context for a word may be.
Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy
kwrandolph
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Re: שלום in Jeremiah 4:10

Post by kwrandolph »

Michael W Abernathy wrote:Karl,
I find your argument hard to follow because you argue context without showing the context.
The typical translation comes out something like,
And he said “Alas, Lord YHWH surely you have led this people and Israel astray saying there will be peace to you and a sword is pressed against the throat.”
In this context, "peace" is expressed as the opposite of what the speaker sees. If you see something different, it would help if you gave your translation for the complete verse.
I see now how you got the interpretation that you arrived at. As I understand your train of thought, you considered השא השאת to be a compound verb from the root ‎‘נשא to beguile, seduce with false promises, this is lifting a person up with sweet talk while not telling the whole truth.’

I, on the other hand, saw a verb ‎‘נשא to lift up, often for the purpose of carrying ⇒ to lift up and carry’ in the passive, Hophal, followed by the subject ‎‘שאת storming as in the violence of war Jr 4:10, La 3:47 or criminality Pr 3:25 ← שאה’ hence a translation along the lines of “And I said, Oh no, Lord YHWH, surely violence has been carried to this people and to Jerusalem saying ‘There will be retribution to you, that a sword touches even to life.’”
Michael W Abernathy wrote:By the way, how are you studying the context? I prefer syntactic analysis. I find that it helps distinguish between opposing interpretations of what the context for a word may be.
Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy
I prefer to take a holistic approach to context, see what the whole says, then break down the individual parts to see how they fit into the whole. I see syntactic analysis (parsing) tends to lose sight of the whole, i.e. don’t see the forest for the trees.

In Jeremiah, nowhere does God beguile the people with promises of peace, as your translation would put it, rather time and time again God tells Jeremiah to announce war, famine, disease and destruction unless the people repent. But the people didn’t repent. So I don’t see how your translation fits the context.

Just my 2¢.

Karl W. Randolph.
Michael W Abernathy
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Re: שלום in Jeremiah 4:10

Post by Michael W Abernathy »

Karl,
This passage has been debated by a lot of different scholars. Rather than go through all the possibilities let me suggest just two. Following the logic of 1 Kings 22:21-22, Jeremiah may have held God as responsible because the false prophets received their words indirectly from God through the agency of a deceiving spirit.. Or Waltke and O’Connor suggest a use of the Hiphil that might explain this passage. When the activity described by the verb is welcome to the “undersubject but unacceptable or disagreeable to a third party, then the notion of toleration comes into view.” They give Psalm 89:43 as an example
הִ֝שְׂמַ֗חְתָּ כָּל־אֹויְבָֽיו׃ You have allowed all his enemies to rejoice
That would suggest Jeremiah 4:10 would read something like, "You have allowed the people to be deceived."

Michael Abernathy
kwrandolph
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Re: שלום in Jeremiah 4:10

Post by kwrandolph »

Michael:

First of all, as far as I have noticed, שלום did not mean “peace” in pre-exilic Biblical Hebrew. The meaning of “peace” used the word שקט. The word שלום carried the idea of making full, complete, which included the idea of paying back, to fulfill the terms of a loan.

In rebelling against God, we in effect have taken out a loan from God, and God has the right to demand a payback. Or there’s a payback for non-performance of a loan.
Michael W Abernathy wrote:Karl,
This passage has been debated by a lot of different scholars. Rather than go through all the possibilities let me suggest just two. Following the logic of 1 Kings 22:21-22, Jeremiah may have held God as responsible because the false prophets received their words indirectly from God through the agency of a deceiving spirit..
That’s a possibility, though the context of the whole book seems to argue against it. Where else in Jeremiah do you find Jeremiah giving that as a possibility?
Michael W Abernathy wrote:Or Waltke and O’Connor suggest a use of the Hiphil that might explain this passage. When the activity described by the verb is welcome to the “undersubject but unacceptable or disagreeable to a third party, then the notion of toleration comes into view.” They give Psalm 89:43 as an example
הִ֝שְׂמַ֗חְתָּ כָּל־אֹויְבָֽיו׃ You have allowed all his enemies to rejoice
That would suggest Jeremiah 4:10 would read something like, "You have allowed the people to be deceived."

Michael Abernathy
First of all, that’s not a Hiphil, but a Hophal in both Jeremiah 4:10 and Psalm 89:43. At least that’s what the consonantal text indicates.

I don’t follow Waltke and O’Connor’s argument in Psalm 89—there the context is at least verses 39–46. That section appears to be Messianic, referring to the suffering servant.

I don’t see how the two passages can be compared. Different subjects. Different contexts.

Karl W. Randolph.
Michael W Abernathy
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Re: שלום in Jeremiah 4:10

Post by Michael W Abernathy »

Karl,
Before you said, " שלום did not mean “peace” in pre-exilic Biblical Hebrew" I thought we were in agreement as to what pre-exilic Hebrew meant. Now I have to assume that either you use the English word "peace" in a non standard way or we differ on this. I started in Genesis and finally gave up on counting the number of places I had to translate it as "peace."
I can see how הִשֵּׁ֜אתָ looks like it is hophal but after looking at every place this word is used (and checking every resource I have) I found that it is hiphil in every verse except Isaiah 19:13 where it is niphal.
Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy
kwrandolph
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Re: שלום in Jeremiah 4:10

Post by kwrandolph »

Michael:
Michael W Abernathy wrote:Karl,
Before you said, " שלום did not mean “peace” in pre-exilic Biblical Hebrew" I thought we were in agreement as to what pre-exilic Hebrew meant. Now I have to assume that either you use the English word "peace" in a non standard way or we differ on this.
We differ on this.
Michael W Abernathy wrote:I started in Genesis and finally gave up on counting the number of places I had to translate it as "peace."
You can translate is as “peace”, but is that accurate? How many times where you translate it as “peace” it can equally well be translated as “fullness”, “full agreement” (after making a treaty), fullness as in completely one with a friend or family member, without holding anything back, “welfare” as in having everything one needs and lacking in nothing, and other contexts connected with the idea of fullness?
Michael W Abernathy wrote:I can see how הִשֵּׁ֜אתָ looks like it is hophal but after looking at every place this word is used (and checking every resource I have) I found that it is hiphil in every verse except Isaiah 19:13 where it is niphal.
Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy
The form השאת is found only twice, and once as משאת, all three times it is a noun, not a verb. ‘שאת storming as in the violence of war Jr 4:10, La 3:47 or criminality Pr 3:25 ← שאה’. It’s not found in Isaiah 19:13.

But the biggest problem I have with the translation you support is the context of the whole of Jeremiah—nowhere does he claim that God made an unconditional promise of good to the people, rather he follows Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 where the promises of God are conditional. Neither do I know of instances where Jeremiah claims that God sent a lying promise of peace through a lying spirit.

Karl W. Randolph.
Michael W Abernathy
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Re: שלום in Jeremiah 4:10

Post by Michael W Abernathy »

Karl,
I agree that Proverbs 3:25 is a noun. But it has no relevance to Jeremiah 4:10. Proverbs 3:25 uses a form of שואהmeaning storm. Jeremiah 4:10 uses a form of נשׁא. The lemma is found in 20 verses in the Hebrew Bible one of those is Isaiah 19:13 in the form נשאו. The New American translation does a fair job of rendering נִשְּׁא֖וּ שָׂ֣רֵי נֹ֑ף as “the princes of Memphis are deluded.”
I can understand why you don’t want to think of Jeremiah accusing God of deception but if you take that as implying tolerance that doesn’t seem to apply. The NET Bible explains their interpretation this way, “The Hiphil of נָשָׁא (nasha’, “to deceive”) is understood in a tolerative sense here: “to allow [someone] to be deceived.” IBHS 446 §27.5c notes that this function of the hiphil describes caused activity that is welcome to the undersubject, but unacceptable or disagreeable to a third party. Jerusalem and Judah welcomed the assurances of false prophets who deceived them. Although this was detestable to God, he allowed it.”
Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy
kwrandolph
Posts: 1531
Joined: Sun Sep 29, 2013 12:51 am

Re: שלום in Jeremiah 4:10

Post by kwrandolph »

Michael:
Michael W Abernathy wrote:Karl,
I agree that Proverbs 3:25 is a noun. But it has no relevance to Jeremiah 4:10. Proverbs 3:25 uses a form of שואהmeaning storm. Jeremiah 4:10 uses a form of נשׁא.
What about Lamentations 3:47? It too uses the exact same form as Jeremiah 4:10, and that as a noun. In fact, that’s the only other place in Tanakh that uses the exact same form as Jeremiah 4:10. Shouldn’t that be counted as evidence that השאת in Jeremiah 4:10 is also a noun?

No, I don’t take the Masoretic points as evidence. But you knew that already.
Michael W Abernathy wrote:The lemma is found in 20 verses in the Hebrew Bible one of those is Isaiah 19:13 in the form נשאו. The New American translation does a fair job of rendering נִשְּׁא֖וּ שָׂ֣רֵי נֹ֑ף as “the princes of Memphis are deluded.”
I agree that Isaiah 19:13 contains the verb נשא so that’s no problem for me. It just doesn’t contain the noun שאת.
Michael W Abernathy wrote:I can understand why you don’t want to think of Jeremiah accusing God of deception but if you take that as implying tolerance that doesn’t seem to apply. The NET Bible explains their interpretation this way, “The Hiphil of נָשָׁא (nasha’, “to deceive”) is understood in a tolerative sense here: “to allow [someone] to be deceived.” IBHS 446 §27.5c notes that this function of the hiphil describes caused activity that is welcome to the undersubject, but unacceptable or disagreeable to a third party. Jerusalem and Judah welcomed the assurances of false prophets who deceived them. Although this was detestable to God, he allowed it.”
Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy
I would like to see other examples of this use of the Hiphil. I had never heard of it before you mentioned it in this discussion. Unless this use applies also to the Hophal, it doesn’t apply to Jeremiah 4:10 as the consonantal text, according to your reading, is Hophal, not Hiphil. So if you can show some examples where there’s no question that we deal with Hiphils, that would be appreciated.

Right now, my understanding of the Hiphil as causative doesn’t allow for this use of the Hiphil. That’s why I ask for more examples. If there are no other examples, then that’s a good reason to reject it here too.

I also don’t take translations into English as evidence. I saw their claim here, but as I asked of you above, I need to see more examples in Hebrew in order to agree with it.

Yours, Karl W. Randolph.
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