Parashat Noah 5764/ November 1, 2003

The above verse in the original Hebrew, Ve-hineni Mashhitam et Ha-Arez

is unclear. Several explanations have been offered for it, the main ones being:

1. et ha-arez- meaning "from the earth", like ke-zeti et ha-ir (Ex. 9:29), i.e. "from the city" (see also Gen. 44:4; Deut. 14:22). The meaning would be, "I am destroying them off the face of the earth." But the example ke-zeti et does not apply, because the preposition et refers there to the verb, not the object as in our case. Further, a combination like lehashkhit min ha-arez - "to wipe out from the earth" is not found.

2. et ha-arez- "Together with the earth", meaning that the land was wiped out and destroyed together with its inhabitants. Again this explanation fits the context of the events only with difficulty.

3. et ha-arez- "Drags himself and another with him". This rule of medieval Hebrew grammarians means we must read the verse as if the word mashitam were doubled: "I am about to destroy them and to destroy the land." And still there is a difficulty understanding "to destroy the earth" as compared with "to destroy them"; Who does "them" refer to? No wonder bible scholars proposed various emendations and "corrections" to the text.

Our sages already taught that one way to resolve problematic words or phrases in the Bible is to draw on other languages, not just sister languages such as Aramaic but even languages that obviously have no connection with the biblical text. The explanation of the word totafot (phylacteries) in the Talmud, also cited by Rashi on the Bible, is well known: "tat in the language of Katfi means two, pat in African (sic) means two"(Sanhedrin 4b) [tat and pat are the consonantal 'roots' of the word totafot, teaching that the phylacteries contain four portions from the Torah]

We can assume that had additional languages related to biblical Hebrew, such as Akkadian, Moabite or Ugaritic, discovered in the past century or so, been accessible to our sages, and certainly if they had been familiar with texts in those languages, they would have used them to explain difficult biblical passages. We will now attempt just such a comparative study.

To understand our opening verse, we will look at Psalm 29 with its unusual structure, including the special structure of individual verses. So, for instance:

Verse 6 requires explanation. The common interpretation is in accordance with the phrasing expressed in the division of the cantillation signs:

Va-yarkidem - He makes them skip. To what does this refer? Common sense would say, the previously mentioned cedars of Lebanon in verse 5 (see above). Now one form of parallelism in biblical poetry is the "missing" parallel (generally in the second stich, or half-line). We complete the missing part in our thoughts according to the first stich. Following is an example from Psalm 114; the words that have to be supplied by the reader are in brackets:

Following this poetic convention, the second stich in Ps. 29: 6 is generally explained in this way: "[He made] Lebanon and Siryon (= Mount Hermon) dance like the sons of rams." This interpretation raises some questions: (a) Contrary to all the other verses of Psalm 29, in which the parallel stichs are of equal length, here, according to this conception, the first stich is shorter, the second very long. (b) Regarding the images appearing in the chapter, each verse depicting "the voice of G-d" presents one image, while here we have a mixture of images. In verse 5, the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon; in verse 6 the voice of the Lord makes the mountains of Lebanon and Siryon dance like sons of rams (after He broke them?). In other words, the cedars of Lebanon are given one and a half verses, the mountains of Lebanon and Siryon only half a verse. This is also unusual.

In Ugaritic literature, which has a close affinity with the language and idioms of the Bible, we find the suffix mem (enclitic mem) for reinforcement. [1] On this basis we can alter the phrasing of our verse:

He made Lebanon dance like a calf / Siryon like a young wild ox

The voice of the Lord in this verse has a unified image - it causes the mountains of Lebanon and Siryon to dance, not the cedars of Lebanon which, as described in the previous image, He breaks. We have already come across the image of the dancing mountains and hills, in Psalm 114, compared by the poet to the hopping and skipping of rams and sheep. The suffix of va-yarkidem is not an accusative suffix, it does not refer to an object - "He made them dance". It is a suffix ( in Ugaritic, mem with a vowel , perhaps ma) added for reinforcement.

Apparently, this is the correct interpretation of the phrase mehatz motna'im kamav (Deut. 33:11). In fact, it is mehatz motne kamav, "Smite the loins of his enemies" in the construct, and the mem is the enclitic mem. Another example of this style appears in Is. 10:5

Hoy, Ashur shevet api u-mate hu be-yadam za'ami
Ha! Assyria, rod of my anger/ In whose hand, as a staff, is My fury

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