Saturday 26 January 2019

The third seal

A little random looking about in the NT. It's a bit like walking into a very familiar place. I hope I will see with refreshed eyes when I look at it with my biased 12 years of work on Tanak.

I also intend to produce the entire NT Margoliuth translation in Unicode so others can have the benefit of the full coding including cantillation. There is no such version of the text online that I have found.

Revelation 6 Fn Min Max Syll
וָאֶשְׁמַ֨ע ק֜וֹל בְּת֨וֹךְ אַרְבַּ֤ע הַחַיּוֹת֙ אֹמֵ֔ר בַּ֤ת חִטִּים֨ בְּדִינָ֔ר וּשְׁלשָׁ֥ה בַתִּ֛ים שְׂעֹרִ֖ים בְּדִינָ֑ר
וְאֶ֥ת־הַשֶּׁ֛מֶן וְאֶ֥ת־הַיַּ֖יִן אַל־תַּרֵֽעַ׃
6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, A bath of wheat for a dinar, and three baths of barley for a dinar,
and the oil and the wine do not hurt.
4B 3d 30
13
Revelation 6:6 Margoliuth
And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, A bath of wheat for a dinar, and three baths of barley for a dinar,
and the oil and the wine do not hurt.

I have always pondered the injunction to not harm the oil and the wine. (I assume that this is not oil in the ground, but olive oil for anointing. And the wine, I suppose, is for rejoicing.)

This apocalypse is working up to the fall of Babel (aka Babylon). This is surely an Old Testament trope. What about our corporations to which we are all tied by the apron strings of Mammon? They are necessary as are all our systems. Our systems demonstrate our cooperation and interdependence. No getting anything for an ordinary life without them.

What do other Hebrew translators have here?
וָאֶשְׁמַע קוֹל מִתּוֹךְ אַרְבַּע הַחַיּוֹת אׂמֵר קַב חִטִּים בְּדִינָר וּשְׁלׂשָׁה קַבִּים שְׂעׂרִים בְּדִינָר וְאֶת־הַשֶּׁמֶן וְהַיַּיִן אַל־תַּשְׁחֵת׃This has a different term for the unit of dry measure קבב occurs only once with this sense in 2 Kings 6:25. It also misses the repeated ואת and substitutes destroy שׁחת for רעע hurt.

וָאֶשְׁמַע קוֹל מִתּוֹךְ אַרְבַּע הַחַיּוֹת לֵאמֹר קַב חִטִּים בְּבֶקַע כֶּסֶף וּשְׁלשָׁה קַבִּים שְׂעֹרִים בְּבֶקַע כֶּסֶף וְאֶת־הַשֶּׁמֶן וְאֶת־הַיַּיִן אַל־תַּשְׁחֵת׃
This has yet a third unit measure, a bekah of silver. The bekah occurs twice in Torah. Gen 24:22, Ex 38:26.

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