Re: Babel in the east or not?

On Tue, 22 Dec 1998 07:43:17 +0000 "Raymond A. Brown"
<raybrown@...> writes:
>At 7:10 pm -0500 19/12/98, Sally Caves wrote:
>>On Sat, 19 Dec 1998, Steg Belsky wrote:
>>> But it's *not* "to" - it says *from*, explicitly!
>>> _vayehi benas`am MI-qedem_.
>>> MI- = from
>>> It's as simple as that.  I don't know from where all these
>translations
>>> came up with "to".
>Geography?
>The plain of Shinar is, as Sally says, in the Tigris-Euphrates basin.
>The
>descendants of Noah are supposed to have lived in the Ararat region
>which
>is to the north-west of Shinar.  Thus if they were travelling from
>Ararat
>to Shinar they'd be travelling _towards_ east unless, of course, they
>took
>a circular route.
They didn't necessarily live in the Araratt region - there are some
commentaries, which i quoted, that explain that Noahh and his family
moved from Araratt to the region east of where Eden had been - which
would also be east of Shin`ar.
Also, _miqedem_ can be understood not as the direction of their movement,
but of the direction of the view of the hebrews who were recieving the
narrative - both Araratt and Shin`ar are east of egypt, sinai, and
cana`an.  Therefore, _benas`am miqedem_ can be understood as _as they
traveled over there in the east_.
And anyway, Mt. Ararat is directly *north* of the central
Tigris-Euphrates (Perat-Hhideqel) basin.  So, if anything they would be
traveling south, not east.

>In any case, I thought the term 'miqeddem' was vague in Hebrew - even
>the
>King James Version though translating it as "from the east" gives
>"eastwards" as an alternative reading in its marginalia.  Or is
>'qeddem'
>the normal Hebrew for east?
Qedem is a normal biblical Hebrew word for east.  Another way to say
"east" is _mizrahh_.  Today, _mizrahh_ is almost exclusively used.
The "to" case form of _qedem_, _qeidma_ is used in the biblical verse
where God says that the patriarchs' descendants "will spread out
westwards, *eastwards*, northwards, and southwards" <<< _ufaratzta yama
ve*qeidma*, tzafona venegba_.


-Stephen (Steg)

>Ray.
>
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