Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Isaiah 41:3

יִרְדְּפֵם יַעֲבוֹר שָׁלוֹם אֹרַח בְּרַגְלָיו לֹא יָבוֹא׃

3 He pursues them and passes on in peace, by a path on which his feet have not gone on before.

יִרְדְּפֵם יַעֲבוֹר שָׁלוֹם  He pursues them and passes on in peace,  יִרְדְּפֵם is a qal imperfect from רדף "pursue." The pronominal suffix "them" is a reference to the nations and kings of verse 2. The second verb, יַעֲבוֹר (qal imperfect) is not joined by a waw-consecutive, and in poetry this is sometimes simply the case. We take the second verb as following after the idea of the first one; here they match both logically and chronologically. The Mp note says the יַעֲבוֹר occurs seven times written plene or fully, with the waw-holem vowel letter: Esther 1:19; 9:27; Job 14:5; Psalm 148:6; Isaiah 31:9; 40:27; and 41:3. Note that this plene spelling occurs in both halves of Isaiah. Here "peace," shalom, is "triumph" or "well-bring." In the context of a war, "peace" is a good day--the end of the fighting.

אֹרַח בְּרַגְלָיו לֹא יָבוֹא   by a path on which his feet have not gone on before. אֹרַח "path" is a poetic variation on the word דֶּרֶךְ. We have to take בְּרַגְלָיו "in his feet" with an implied relative clause, or else supply a preposition: "For which" or "on which." There also needs to be a supplied word in English for the end of the verse: לֹא יָבוֹא "have not gone" is almost complete, but in context the idea of "have never gone," or "have not gone on before" is implied.

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