Customs and the knowledge gap

I'm looking for places where the Hebrew Bible explains the significance of something, instead of assuming shared knowledge on the part of its audience, e.g. Ruth 4:7 or 1Sa 9:9. Both of those use identical Hebrew. Anyone know of other examples, or how to search for similar understandings?

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Dave Hooton

If you right click a word or phrase and scroll down the right side of the pop up you will find one or more categories of Literary Typing (click the arrow to see them all). It seems hopeful in that Ruth 4.7 has Novella, Story but 1 Sam 9.9 has History, Legend, Reason. So nothing in common to search for.

Even the Hebrew for "former", "former times" (H3942) lets us down with many meanings. Worst of all the Sense for the phrase has the wrong meaning.

The closest I got was <H3942> BEFORE 2-3 WORDS Israel

Eli Evans (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/825565#Comment_825565

Ben, that's an interesting question.

Propositional Outlines marks both of these verses as "parentheticals," so I suspect that would be a fruitful avenue for finding more examples -- except that Propositional Outlines aren't (yet) searchable. (We intend to, just haven't yet.)

So I spent some time over lunch making a passage list of the parentheticals in the OT, which I shared here: https://documents.logos.com/documents/94fd6b88c88e421cbaa41c525cb89aeb

Looking over the list ... as I'm sure you already know, most of the instances of filled-in knowledge gaps are geograhpic: place names that changed over time (eg, "En-Mishpat, that is Kadesh" in Gen 14:7) or specifying the location of places that had by the time of writing become obscure (eg, "the well was called Beer-lehai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered" in Gen 16:14). Some are population issues (eg, the thing about the Nephilim in Gen 6:4-5, or even "At that time the Canaanites were in the land" in Gen 12:6). Some are naming issues for people (eg, "Esau is Edom" in Gen 36:8, further explained in 36:19, and 36:43). Another set of issues revolves around the calendar shift (eg, "in the month of Ziv, which is the second month" in 1 Ki 6:1).

Some are cultural issues, which is what I think you're really after. It looks like the biblical authors may have assumed their readers didn't know that:

The right hand traditionally used to bless the firstborn (Gen 48:14)
Ishmaelites wear gold earrings (Jdg 8:24)
Young men used to prepare feasts as part of courtship (Jdg 14:10)
The ark of the covenant used to be in Bethel, tended by Aaron's son (Jdg 20:27-28)
At one time the ark moved from place to place (1 Sam 14:18)
Some of the finer points of temple procedure (2Chr 5:11-13)
A procedural point about Persian custom (Esther 1:13-14) Actually, most of Esther sort of assumes the reader isn't that familiar with Persian culture. For example, Esther 8:8 has Ahaseurus explaining how Persian edicts cannot be rescinded, but that's not the narrator, so might not count for your purposes.
"Pur" is another name for casting lots (Esther 3:7 and 9:24).

I'm sure there are more instances, but these may give you some formulae (eg, a search for the Hebrew for "until this day," [search link]) to look for. That search turns up a lot of aetiologies as well (eg, Gen 32:32), which may or may not be what you're looking for.

Hope that helps!

Ben

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/825786#Comment_825786

Excellent, many thanks!