Here’s what you’ve got to be aware of concerning the Blessing of Moses contained in Deuteronomy chapter 33.
It is jam-packed with odd and mystifying phrases that have baffled language scholars for ages.
In fact, in this chapter there are more than a few Hebrew words that appear here and literally nowhere else in Scripture.
Since their meaning is in doubt, all kinds of raging debates will erupt about the best and most correct interpretations.
And when I say “raging debates” I ain’t joking.
Just yesterday, some bloke in the Jews for Jesus Facebook group told me I was fit for nothing but the fires of hell because of my take on the Hebrew RIBEBOTH-KODESH.
You can read the article that sparked all of this outrage by clicking here.
I just want you to be aware that we’re about to enter a part of the Torah that Bible translators and interpreters have struggled…and I mean REALLY struggled with.
And understand it’s gonna be impossible to go into every possible interpretation.
Also, be aware that even the most common interpretations are based on mass consensus guessing and nothing else.
I’m sorry folks but this is one of those rare times when even the earliest Bible documents we have access to have been corrupted.
When I say corrupted, I don’t mean in a big way.
I’m just talking about misspelled Hebrew words that went undetected copy after copy over the centuries.
Or sometimes we’re just dealing with challenging translation issues because the original proto-Hebrew alphabet didn’t actually have some letters that exist in modern Hebrew.
For example, did you know that the letters ALEPH, HEH, VAV and YOD did NOT exist in ancient proto-Hebrew.
Imagine if you were trying to translate a book written in ancient English that had been created using only 20 letters of our alphabet instead of the 26 letters that comprise our modern alphabet.
Maybe most of the time you could correctly guess what the author was trying to say but more often than not you would encounter some mighty strange sounding words and phrases that would cause your head to spin in confusion.
While it is true that the switch-over from Proto-Hebrew to modern Hebrew occurred about 3000 years ago, it still doesn’t make the translation process that much easier.
Why?
Because many of the weird phrases and idioms we encounter in this chapter were connected to the traditions of those ancient times.
Thus, they were of course easily understandable to the folks back then.
However, because the tradition of the original intended meaning has been lost over the centuries, modern translators have no choice but to literally translate the ancient Hebrew and then just do their darn best to make sense of the final product as hard as that is to do.
I’m done.
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