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The Genesis of Justice - unit 1 - and Backs Down Schocken Bible Translation Check the Contemporary English Version
Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses, (New York: Schocken Books Inc.) © 1995. |
Torah Study
The Genesis of Justice - unit 1
God Threatens- and Backs Down Schocken Bible Translation
Check the Contemporary English Version
Genesis 2:
eat, yes, eat: Heb. akhol tokhel, literally, “eating you may eat.” Others use “you may freely eat”; I have followed B-R’s practice of doubling the verb throughout, which retains the sound as well as the meaning. In this passage, as in many instances, I have inserted the word “yes” for rhythmical reasons.
16 YHWH, God, commanded concerning the human, saying:
From every (other) tree of the garden you may eat, yes, eat,die, yes, die: Others use “surely die.”
17 but from the Tree of the Knowing of Good and Evil—
you are not to eat from it,
for on the day that you eat from it, you must die, yes, die...
Genesis 3:
Even though God said: Others use “Did God really say …?” in the garden …!: Such an uncompleted phrase, known as aposeopesis, leaves it to the reader to complete the speaker’s thought which in the Bible is usually an oath or a threat (see also, for instance, 14:23, 21:23, 26:29, 31:50).
1 Now the snake was more shrewd than all the living-things of the field that YHWH, God, had made.
It said to the woman:
Even though God said: You are not to eat from any of the
trees in the garden…!
2 The woman said to the snake:
From the fruit of the (other) trees in the garden we may eat,
3 but from the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden,
God has said:
You are not to eat from it and you are not to touch it,
lest you die.
4 The snake said to the woman:
Die, you will not die!you: Plural. like gods: Or “like God.”
5 Rather, God knows
that on the day that you eat from it, your eyes will be opened
and you will become like gods, knowing good and evil.
6 The woman saw
that the tree was good for eating
and that it was a delight to the eyes,
and the tree was desirable to contemplate.
She took from its fruit and ate
and gave also to her husband beside her,
and he ate.then: Added in English to avoid a “knew-nude” rhyme.
7 The eyes of the two of them were opened
and they knew then
that they were nude.
They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.breezy-time: Evening. face of YHWH: The “face” or presence of God is a dominating theme in many biblical stories and in the book of Psalms. People seek God’s face or hide from it; God reveals it to them or hides it from them.
8 Now they heard the sound of YHWH, God, (who was) walking about in the garden at the breezy-time of the day.
And the human and his wife hid themselves from the face of YHWH, God, amid the trees of the garden.
9 YHWH, God, called to the human and said to him:
Where are you?
10 He said:
I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid, because I am nude,
and so I hid myself.
11 He said:
Who told you that you are nude?
From the tree about which I command you not to eat,
have you eaten?gave to be: Put. “Give” has been retained here, despite its awkwardness, as a repeating word in the narrative.
12 The human said:
The woman whom you gave to be beside me, she gave me from the tree,
and so I ate.
13 YHWH, God, said to the woman:
What is this that you have done?
The woman said:
The snake enticed me,
and so I ate.
14 YHWH, God, said to the snake:
Because you have done this,
damned be you from all the animals and from all the living-things of the field;
upon your belly shall you walk and dust shall you eat, all the days of your life.seed: Offspring, descendants.
15 I put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed:
they will bruise you on the head, you will bruise them in the heel.
16 To the woman he said:
I will multiply, multiply your pain (from) your pregnancy,
with pains shall you bear children.
Toward your husband will be your lust, yet he will rule over you.painstaking-labor: Heb. itzavon. Man and woman receive equal curses (see v.16, “pain…pains”).
17 To Adam he said:
Because you have hearkened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying:
You are not to eat from it!
Damned be the soil on your account,
with painstaking-labor shall you eat from it, all the days of your life.sting-shrub: Heb. dardar; thistle (“thorns and thistles” suggests an alliteration not found in the Hebrew).
18 Thorn and sting-shrub let it spring up for you,
when you (seek to) eat the plants of the field!
19 By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread,
until you return to the soil,
for from it you were taken.
For you are dust, and to dust shall you return.Havva: Trad. English “Eve.”
20 The human called his wife’s name: Havva/Life-giver!
For she became the mother of all the living.God…clothed them: Once punishment has been pronounced, God cares for the man and the woman. Both aspects of God comprise the biblical understanding of his nature, and they are not exclusive of each other.
21 Now YHWH, God, made Adam and his wife coats of skins and clothed them.
one of us: See note on 1:26. throughout the ages: Or “for the eons”; others use “forever.”
22 YHWH, God, said:
Here, the human has become like one of us, in knowing good and evil.
So now, lest he send forth his hand
and take also from the Tree of Life
and eat
and live throughout the ages…!
23 So YHWH, God, sent him away from the garden of Eden, to work the soil from which he had been taken.winged-sphinxes: Mythical ancient creatures, also represented on the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:18). “Cherubim,” the traditional English rendering, has come to denote chubby, red-cheeked baby angels in Western art, an image utterly foreign to the ancient Near East.
24 He drove the human out
and caused to dwell, eastward of the garden of Eden,
the winged-sphinxes and the flashing, ever-turning sword
to watch over the way to the Tree of Life.Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses, (New York: Schocken Books Inc.) © 1995.