What's going on with the database dump

If you are following this blog, you will note that I have been posting 3 or so posts a day to record my near final status of the list of all Hebrew words in the Hebrew Scriptures organized by Hebrew root (sometimes also called stem) and with full pointing and cantillation signs to allow comparison to the word as expressed by the left-to-right abbreviation for Hebrew known as SimHebrew. 

Why would I do this? First because I have here what I wanted 14 years ago when I began to study Hebrew and I think it is valuable to anyone who wants to learn Biblical Hebrew. It improves on my current published concordance in that it uses SimHebrew (making it easier to search) and it includes all the pointing and not just the consonants. It is more revealing of patterns of Hebrew thought than a traditional concordance or glossary. 

I am not selling this at the moment as an additional or replacement volume as a part of my 10-volume translation, alphabet book, concordance, and cantillation commentary (see the links on the right). I want it to be available. It is much easier to use than any other presentation of the words of Scripture that I have seen and it can almost be scanned like a book with the automated helps that are present through the web.

Since I think it is useful, I intend to schedule the rest of it over the next seven to ten weeks. (I think I will get it down to about 200 posts). They are all linked from here.

I have used a lot of books and tools and I know how difficult they are to learn from. Over 50 years ago a choir I sang with gifted me an analytical concordance. It seemed to me it must have all the answers. I think they hoped I would start questioning them and develop a better approach to learning. Indeed I must have done this to some extent. Digging in that concordance without the knowledge of Greek and Hebrew was not a suitable way to begin. I remember how high the mountain seemed when I began to learn Hebrew with more discipline 35 years later(!) I can't find that concordance in my office. I think it was last used to make a small Christmas tree seem higher than it really was.

Such concordances and indeed all glossaries are not dictionaries. Such glossaries and concordances with glosses from traditional translations simply record what has been used as a gloss for such and such a word, given the prejudices of the time in which the work was done. Such historical records run the risk of short circuiting our learning, making us think we already know the answer. Yes, some use they are, but not ultimate. (says Yoda)

A good example of misleading information is in the Lambdin small glossary at the end of his introductory book. It's not his fault. He actually avoids the other 5 or 6 roots that are rendered as punish. But in the English-Hebrew appendix, he knows that people will look up punish and he lists yvn עון as punishment. Punishment is indeed the gloss used in Genesis 4:13 but it cannot agree with the gloss used in other places for this word form. The phrase should be translated as my iniquity is greater than I can bear. So yvni appears under yvn as follows in what I list in my concordance:

Root	Domain	Word	Count	Pointing	Gloss	Reference
yvn	Sin	yvoni	7	עֲוֺנִ֖י	my iniquity	Gen 4:13(6)
				עֲוֺֽנִי	my iniquity	Job 31:33(7)
				־עֲוֺ֫נִ֥י	my iniquity	Job 7:21(7)
				־עֲוֺנִֽי	my iniquity	Job 14:17(6)
				־עֲוֺנִ֤י	my iniquity	1Sa 20:1(12)
				־עֲוֺנִ֥י	my iniquity	Psa 38:19(2)
				־עֲוֺנִ֖י	my iniquity	1Kgs 17:18(13)

Nice and easy, always spelled the same, sung with variations depending on its place in the musical phrase. No need for the punish word at all, a word that is entirely out of place in the context of Scripture which in both Tanakh and the Newer Testament is good news, and not something to be feared. There is no Hebrew word that has punish as its dominant gloss. The use of punish is a product of tradition, and here tradition - going right back to the Vulgate - is simply wrong.

Title page of the
Hebrew Latin Concordance

What I have tried to do in my work is reason from patterns of word usage. I do have my glosses, but they differ sufficiently to raise questions rather than reinforce the decisions of past translations. I have also developed a categorization of the stems by semantic domain. This helps see when another gloss, a homonym, is needed for a root. yvn needs no variation, no English nor Latin synonyms. They explain nothing. All 231 instances in my translation render yvn as iniquity.

One tool I used that was really challenging is this Hebrew-Latin Concordance. (This also was a gift to me from Giddy Nashon of blessed memory, my first real Hebrew teacher.) It had the advantage that I could not instantly allow myself to think I knew any answer.

The traditional Latin for yvn

You clever ones who read fluently in Hebrew and Latin can examine the texts to the left and to the right. For me, I note that even the poena of the concordance requires a second word, poena peccati. Now I ask, Is punishment a reasonable gloss? 

By no means. It forces the reader into an interpretation of Cain's psychological state. He may well be considering the consequences of his iniquity. These are many more than the human thought that is expressed in punishment.The full set of the glosses and word forms for yvn can be found here. 

By the way, avn (aleph-vav-nun) and yvn (ayin-vav-nun)  have some relationship but should not be mixed up. The former is mischief, the latter iniquity. We might consider them equivalent, but mischief is more often inconvenience than sin. And avn also has the sense of virility. So I think that they are different. You can compare them: avn will be found here.

It would be great to have conversations over the sense and usage of these and other words. Comments are welcome.