B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

I find this a bit unusual:

וַיֹּאמֶר חַגַּי מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה בְּמַלְאֲכוּת יְהוָה לָעָם לֵאמֹר אֲנִי אִתְּכֶם נְאֻם־יְהוָה

Where it would be translated : Then haggai the Lord's messenger spoke in/ with the Lord's message to all the people...This is an unusual way of putting things?

Secondly haggai is referred to throughout as the Prophet Haggai, here as the messenger, now I know that essentially a prophet is a messenger, but scripture usually says prophet and not messenger? Any thoughts would be nice.

Chris watts

וַיֹּאמֶר חַגַּי מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה בְּמַלְאֲכוּת יְהוָה לָעָם לֵאמֹר אֲנִי אִתְּכֶם נְאֻם־יְהוָה

Chris,

A technical suggestion: we have a [heb] tag that you can use to quote Hebrew text. If you have a nice Hebrew font (e.g., SBL Hebrew or SIL Ezra) installed on your local computer, it should show up very readably:

וַיֹּאמֶר חַגַּי מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה בְּמַלְאֲכוּת יְהוָה לָעָם לֵאמֹר אֲנִי אִתְּכֶם נְאֻם־יְהוָה

Of course, you can still increase the font size if you want. But the heb tag is designed to be readable with the default font for English text. You can use the [right] tag then to get the right-to-left for Hebrew:

וַיֹּאמֶר חַגַּי מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה בְּמַלְאֲכוּת יְהוָה לָעָם לֵאמֹר אֲנִי אִתְּכֶם נְאֻם־יְהוָה

Hope you find this useful.

Kirk

Acknowledged Kirk, thanks. Been a bit lazy with the copy and paste from online since I found the Sil Hebrew keyboard un-intuitive, as opposed to my old keyboard where the hebrew sounds of the letters mimicked the english key and I could type a lot quicker. Not so the Sil hebrew keyboard.

chris watts

Chris,

I'm talking about the font that renders the text. Any keyboard works as long as it generates utf-8 characters, i.e., Unicode. As for me, I rarely type in Hebrew; copy and paste is faster and more accurate.

Best wishes,
Kirk

I misunderstood you sorry. In other words copy and paste between the hebrew tags is what you meant. Yes I understand.
Chris watts

Chris Watts wrote: ↑Tue May 25, 2021 6:36 am I misunderstood you sorry. In other words copy and paste between the hebrew tags is what you meant. Yes I understand.
Chris watts

Precisely. Make sure that there are no spaces between the tags and your Hebrew text.

[‎heb‎]שלום[/‎heb‎] rather than [‎heb‎] שלום [/‎heb‎]. Do you see the spaces? They shouldn't be there. Spaces mess up alignment.

Hi Chris,

I don't see במלאכות strange.
and I don't know why the translation writes "message" (unless it means the act of sending the messenger).
במלאכות means that it was done under a sending (I mean, after a person was sent to do an act - then the act is done under this sending)
Like a servant, when he says that he's coming in the name of the king.

**
As for the word מלאך (and מלאכות) - I can guess that it is a literary motif word for this part.
Starts with חגי המלאך, moves to במלאכות ה, and ends with ויעשו מלאכה (in the next verse).

וַ֠יֹּאמֶר חַגַּ֞י מַלְאַ֧ךְ יְהוָ֛ה בְּמַלְאֲכ֥וּת יְהוָ֖ה לָעָ֣ם לֵאמֹ֑ר אֲנִ֥י אִתְּכֶ֖ם נְאֻם־יְהוָֽה׃

Notice the text of the Septuagint (Rahlfs):

καὶ εἶπεν Αγγαιος ὁ ἄγγελος κυρίου τῷ λαῷ Ἐγώ εἰμι μεθʼ ὑμῶν, λέγει κύριος.‎
And Haggai the messenger of the Lord said to the people, "'I am with you,' says the Lord."

That's nice and clean. They don't have the line בְּמַלְאֲכ֥וּת יְהוָ֖ה or anything corresponding to it.

HALOT's entry for מַלְאָכוּת is very simple:

*מַלְאָכוּת:‎ מַלְאָךְ,‎ Bauer-L. Heb. 505o, Gulkowitsch 43; MHeb.2 angelic appearance: cs. מַלְאֲכוּת: commissioned message Hg 1:13; cj. (rd. בְּמַלְאֲכֻתוֹ,‎ Rudolph) on the strength of the commissioning by him 2C 23:10.

Ludwig Koehler et al., The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994–2000), 586.

Hi Jason,

If the Sept. didn't put that in their translation, it doesn't mean that it doesn't appear in the MT (of course).
Could be that they didn't translate that two words because it is a "repeat".
if Haggai is מלאך ה then, of course, he is talking במלאכות ה

think about במלאכות=בשליחות
how would you translate בשליחות as בשליחות המלך or בשליחות ה?

just like there is מלך and there is מלכות
(as king and king-ness (royalty))
and just like there is ילד and there is ילדות
(as child and childhood)
So there is מלאך and מלאכות (in the same relationship)
as מלאכות is the act (or the nature) of the מלאך
****
I didn't understand Halot so much
What does "commissioned message" mean?

****

Even-shoshan says that this is not a form found in scripture and it is indeed the only occurrence. Could this not be translated as "the Lord's messenger in the Lord's work" IE busy with the Lord's work. It is an odd way to introduce God's words by a prophet, I do not know of any other introduction like this one.
chris watts