Hebrew question: Proverbs 23:23
In Prov. 23:23 NASB, notice that the words "it" and "get" are in italics. Looking at the Hebrew, it seems to me that a more literal translation would be "Buy truth, and do not sell wisdom and instruction and understanding." Is there some reason that "do not sell" must adhere to "buy truth" rather than to the three concepts that follow?
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Comments
There are translations which go with both... you can easily find discussion of this sort of issue with the passage guide feature. If you look at a good commentary. For comment in a grammar use the exegetical guide or another option is to create a collection of grammars and then use the cited by tool if the exact verse is mentioned. Since it isn't mentioned in any of my grammars I would suggest the key grammatical concepts to search for are verbless clauses and apposition. The text reads as if wisdom, instruction and understanding are further specified truth... so personally I prefer the NASB to your suggestion.
Hope that helps.
גַּם־חֹשֶׁךְ֮ לֹֽא־יַחְשִׁ֪יךְ מִ֫מֶּ֥ךָ וְ֭לַיְלָה כַּיּ֣וֹם יָאִ֑יר כַּ֝חֲשֵׁיכָ֗ה כָּאוֹרָֽה
This is my take: the translation you have reflects two aspects of the syntax of the proverb and supplies the italicised elements to make it clear:
(a) the first part buy and do not sell is the kind of thing you expect in antithetical parallelism which is common in wisdom literature. There is logic in meaning: buy and do not sell means get and make sure you keep.
(b) there is an atnah, that is a disjunctive accent, under the verb translated "sell". This means that it belongs with what precedes (the parallelism mentioned above). It would be odd for the verb to be separated by a disjunctive accent from its immediately following direct object. There is no direct object marker (את) either.
It seems best to understand wisdom, discipline, and understanding as expansions of the subject (what one is to buy and not sell).
The overall meaning does not change a great deal no matter what.
I'd love to pervade Faithlife's Christiandiscourse.com with questions like this and believe we have folks there who could speak meaningfully to such questions. I would love to attract more such questions and experts.
I'd love to pervade Faithlife's Christiandiscourse.com with questions like this and believe we have folks there who could speak meaningfully to such questions. I would love to attract more such questions and experts.
It feels difficult to ask questions like this on Christiandiscourse.com because you get trolled by people asking why you don't just believe what the Bible says! I wish it was a place for such discussion!
גַּם־חֹשֶׁךְ֮ לֹֽא־יַחְשִׁ֪יךְ מִ֫מֶּ֥ךָ וְ֭לַיְלָה כַּיּ֣וֹם יָאִ֑יר כַּ֝חֲשֵׁיכָ֗ה כָּאוֹרָֽה
There is Biblical Hermeneutics at http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/
It would be great if Logos provided such a site but it would have to be monitored ...
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