Hebrews 1:1-4 from the Hebrew of Ezekiel Margoliouth

You might not have been expecting this. In the mid-1800s, Ezekiel Margoliouth revised an earlier Hebrew New Testament and added cantillation (See here for the information on Hebrew translations of the New Testament).

In this post I have put the first four verses of the Epistle to the Hebrews into my database as an experiment in translating from the Hebrew into English. I have conformed the translation to the concordance rules I used for my translation of Tanach. I am curious as to how the Hebrew works for me, and how the cantillation patterns compare with those of Tanach.

(Please see earlier posts like this one if you are not aware of the deciphering key I am using. Basically, the accents under the text map consistently and unambiguously to a diatonic scale. Each one defines the recitation pitch until the next one is seen. The accents over the text define ornamentation relative to the current recitation pitch. The entire Hebrew Bible is a love song.)

         Hebrews 1:1 In diverse modes and in several ways, spoke God present to our ancestors through the prophets,

Cantillation: The music in the first verse has no atnah. There is a breath invited, but no mid-verse cadence on the subdominant, A. The composer immediately goes beyond pure announcement to a heightened emotion on the C. The remainder of the phrase leading to the tonic seems typical but it isn't. Only two verses in Tanach end with e c d e g# e (silluq-darga-tevir-silluq-tifha-silluq). 

If we eliminate the tonic (silluq), 361 verses end with c d g# e. The same additional metegs (a mark identical to the tonic silluq but applying to pronunciation and not to the music) interfere with the melodic line as I have pointed out before. There is of course no earlier or later version to compare with, so I suggest that the metegs be ignored (if you can tell the difference between silluq and meteg -- difficult since they are the same mark). Just continue on the preceding recitation note. So the tonic, e, in bar 4 is likely not needed and should continue on the B until the last syllable of elohim. 

Translation: Curious that pnh (bold words are in SimHebrew - a transcription that is reversible between square text and Roman characters) in the form lpnim (bar 5-6) glossed above as present is also the word for face, and the preposition before. Hebrew like English can use this word in both a spatial and a temporal sense. I'm told the Greek πάλαι is purely temporal. 

Theological-scientific-aside: The Hebrew language can sense the wholeness of space-time. Corner is also a gloss for pnh. Remember that song -- 'you in your small corner' -- a place in space-time where we face things.

Hebrews 1:2 and in these last days he has spoken to us through the son whom he set to possess the whole,
by means of whom he made also the aeons,

they look like qadma

C: The music is typical except for the typing of the accents in bar 3 which should, I think, be pashta rather than qadma, so slurred C-D-C-D rather than D-C-D-C as is written above. A double qadma occurs only twice in Tanach - Deuteronomy 12:30 and Esther 3:13. The closing contour, A, B, g#, f, e is used over 800 times in the prose sections of Tanach. The last three notes (g, f, e) are used over 8,000 times in the prose, only twice in the poetry. Margoliouth will not have used poetic te'amim at all in the NT.

T: This son is without an article in the Greek, so the word seems indefinite but the role of the son is clarified. In Greek the lack of an article says: pay attention, you do not know of whom you are hearing yet. In the Hebrew, the translator has included the article (בַּבֵּ֔ן). So the English from the Hebrew reads the son. You may capitalize son if you like. Jesus is our peer. Will we become his?

What is Hebrew teaching about the nature of that word aeon (הָעוֹלָמִים) that is derived from what is hidden or obscure, (one of several senses of עלם)? English aeon is directly derived from the Greek of this verse τοὺς αἰῶνας (tous aiōnas). I am reminded of Qohelet 3:11.

The whole he has made beautiful in its time, even the obscurity (עלם )he has given in their heart without which the human would not find out the doings that this God has done from beginning and to conclusion.

I find this verse from Qohelet positive, even foundational for science. The human is motivated to find out. And we can do it -- see the Webb telescope for instance. As a colleague in conversation put it: "The verse affirms a God-given impulse to investigate, to probe creation in reverence. The Webb telescope is, in that sense, a part of Qohelet’s fulfillment -- humanity gazing further into the aeons, haʿolamim (the hidden ages)."

Aside: So it is that we now can look back in time ourselves. This is a concept we could not have understood without special relativity.

Returning to the third and fourth verses of Hebrews 1. 

Hebrews 1:3 in that he is the brilliance of his glory and the image of his being, lifting up the whole by his prevailing word,
as he achieved in himself the acquittal from our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Greatness of the heights; 

C: Tarsin (the shake in bar1) is followed by munach, high C (as in bar 2), 608 times in the Hebrew canon. Eighteen verses begin with telisha-gedola followed by tarsin with the tonic as reciting pitch followed by the dominant as reciting pitch (munach).

These are the first four verses I have looked at with cantillation in the NT, so I have no idea how often this particular composer uses this motif. Of course, he would not recognize the trope that I use. And I do not understand the thought process underpinning the music of the trope in ancient times. All I know is that the deciphering key that I use -- developed in the last century by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura -- makes the trope much more transparent to me as a musician than any other rendition I have heard.

T: Brilliance (zhr) is a late word used rarely in Tanach, twice in Daniel and once in Ezekiel. In himself is the word for bones. This is another flexible Hebrew stem with several senses and uses. (The link is to the concordance where you can find all my translation choices, Hebrew roots and glosses.) Hebrew commonly uses עֶצֶם (yxm) metaphorically for essence or selfhood.

Hebrews 1:4 and thus he became a goodness beyond that of the messengers,
in proportion to how he came to possess a name surpassing above theirs.

C: The contour of the music of verse 4 to the atnah (bar 5) is shared by 811 verses. The contour is unique from the atnah to the final e. 14 verses (in Tanach) share the last 6 bars in shape. 75 verses share the last 5 bars. 284 verses share the shape of the last 4 bars. 

T: In Hebrews 1:4, I want to recall the good of Genesis 1. Genesis 1 never says the word better. I tend to follow the French Proverb: Le meilleure est l'ennemie du bon. The sentence in these four verses is a concise statement of how God in Christ bears the good of creation. 

Theological reflection: As the Son, Jesus speaks to us of the will of God to mercy and compassion towards others. Modern physics reminds us that we inhabit a reality marked by openness rather than mechanical certainty, a kind of cloud of unknowing in which choices matter. Yet this indeterminate world is upheld, lifted up, by the prevailing (gbr) word, the valiant child who gave himself for the life of the world (ylm). (cf. Job 3 -- Perish! day when I was born, and the night promising pregnancy of a valiant (gbr) child.) The phrase (hrh gbr) in Job is unique in Tanach.

If so, the question is whether we grow into the responsibility that belongs to the ages (ylmim) to come. Participation rather than domination seems to be the mode of this rule. And you will remember that 'only sign', Jonah. His story asks whether we are willing to share in that mercy, or whether we resist the generosity by which God keeps the world alive.