Hevel.org: A Chasing after Wind

Some of my friends are in the middle of a discussion on Facebook about how to approach the teaching of Hebrew in seminaries: whether to use Bible programs, what grammar to use, etc.  Underlying this discussion is the reality that seminaries and denominations have been dropping the language requirement like a bad habit over the past decade or two.  This is an exceptionally bad idea.  As one friend put it, just because there are a bunch of bad Hebrew teachers and students don’t learn anything useful doesn’t mean that pastors don’t need an effective working knowledge of biblical languages.

I am preaching on Hosea 11:1-11 on Sunday morning.  Consider the NRSV and NET Bible translations of a couple of verses that I have been working with this week:

Here is the NRSV reading of Hosea 11:4

I led them with cords of human kindness,
        with bands of love.
    I was to them like those
        who lift infants to their cheeks.
        I bent down to them and fed them.

Here is the NET Bible:

I led them with leather cords,
    with leather ropes;
    I lifted the yoke from their neck,
    and gently fed them.

Wouldn’t you say that there is a fairly significant difference between these two?  The NET translators go against translation tradition by choosing the secondary meanings of ‘adam and ‘ahavah, i.e., “leather.”  Rather than “cords of human kindness,” whatever the heck those are, the image seems to be one of God leading the Israelites like a cow in a harness.  Is God lifting a yoke from their bovine necks, or picking up infants to kiss their cheeks?

It would be easy (and fun) to rhapsodize about God’s compassionate cuddling of the Israelites.  But what if that is not what the text says?  Does anyone want to really get it right these days?

Here’s another one, verse 7.  First the NRSV:

My people are bent on turning away from me.
        To the Most High they call,
        but he does not raise them up at all.

And the NET Bible:

My people are obsessed with turning away from me;
    they call to Baal, but he will never exalt them!

Those translations would support two completely different sermons, wouldn’t they?  The Israelites are pictured in this chapter as wayward children, very much like the Prodigal Son in the later testament.  In exile in a foreign land, they are being attacked and destroyed, and in their distress they call out for help.  The Hebrew text is confusing and probably textually corrupt.  It says literally something like “they will cry out ‘up’ to him, but he will not lift them up.”  The BHS editors suggest that “up” (`al) should be emended to “Baal” (ba`al).

So, are these folks crying out to God (in vain) or are they still calling out to Baal?  Or, are they in confusion, just crying out to the heavens for help that never seems to arrive?  Wouldn’t you like your pastor to be able to make an educated guess about how to read the passage?

In the very next verse, we hear that God is going to restore Israel, saying something to the effect of “I wish I knew how to quit you, er, Ephraim.”  It doesn’t make much sense for God to be the one who is unable to save in verse 7.  The NRSV and almost every other modern translation get it wrong.

There are several delightful issues of interpretation in Hosea 11.  Having facility with the Hebrew text (and perhaps some Greek for the LXX) is the best hope you have to get it right.