Dear "Hebrew" brothers,
I have a question about the translation of Proverbs 22:13. The NWT renders the passage: "The lazy one has said: There is a lion outside! In the midst of the public squares I shall be murdered!"
Yet, the English morpheme "murder," denotes (in this particular context):
"transitive and intransitive verb kill somebody illegally: to kill another person deliberately and not in self-defense or with any other extenuating circumstance recognized by law."
The term "murder" also carries the idea of one human being killing another human with premediation or willful/criminal intent (mens rea). Therefore, would "kill" be a more fitting rendering of RTSH (ratsach) here?
Wilma A. Bailey (author of "You Shall Not Kill" or "You Shall Not Murder"?) writes:
"The word RTSH [ratsach] appears in this verse [Proverbs 22:13] in verbal form, but it cannot mean murder. Animals may indeed kill, but they do not make moral judgments" (page 13).
I will defer to you brothers who know more Hebrew than I do.
Addendum: See Insight on the Scriptures for more details. NWT 2013 renders Prov. 22:13 with "I will be killed" instead of "murdered."
6 comments:
http://biblehub.com/hebrew/eratzeach_7523.htm
Thanks, Duncan. That is a helpful reference.
I still think "killed" is possibly better here than "murdered," but the highly respected Michael V. Fox (Anchor Bible Commentary on Proverbs, page 701 appears to favor "murdered." Here are his remarks:
"22:13 The sluggard says, 'There is a lion in the street, among the plazas I will be murdered!' The lazy man comes up with the silliest excuses to beg off work. Other droll descriptions of the lazy man in Proverbs are found in 19:24 and 26:13–15. This proverb is a near-doublet of 26:13, except that it has a more explicit pretext: 'I
will be murdered!” The verse is highly alliterative: ʾamar ʿaṣel ʾări baḥuṣ // betoker ḥobot ʾeraṣeaḥ. The /b/, /r/, /ḥ/, and /ṣ/ sounds are emphasized by repetition. Note also the assonance in the /a/ vowels in the first line and /o/ and /e/ vowels in the second."
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ImpmfbmLEw0C&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=proverbs+22:13+killed+murdered&source=bl&ots=C3jDt7PMiT&sig=RnCg_m9aF3ErsyQna_1gJunWUWY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjW-6_fmKfcAhXJcsAKHXOhDzk4ChDoATAHegQIBhAB#v=onepage&q=proverbs%2022%3A13%20killed%20murdered&f=false
Orchot Tzadikim 10:15
If a rabbi and Pious Man is far from his city he should not hold himself back from going there to study because of his fear of the roads, as does the lazy man who excuses himself by saying "There is a lion without; I shall be slain in the streets" (Prov. 22:13). But a man should keep in mind that many people travel and are not injured. So he too should not restrain himself from the journey out of fear, for those who are sent to fulfill a command of the Torah are not injured (Pesahim 8b).
I find it difficult to understand the term as murdered in this instance unless the different terms for lion have some significants and lions are not always litteral. Compare rev 5:5
I agree that if a literal lion is understood in Prov. 22:13, then it makes little sense to interpret ratsach as "intentional and evil violence" as the André LaCocque, Paul Ricoeur link suggests. The book gives some excellent information, but I disagree there.
It's noticeable that one strategy is to use "slain" instead of "killed" or "murdered." However, even that word is ambiguous and highly dependent on context. Slaying may refer to just killing or to murder--context will determine what is meant.
In any event, the data you presented was helpful.
Here is Bruce Waltke's take on Prov. 22:13 from his Proverbs commentary:
"I will be as good as murdered (ʾērāṣēaḥ—note the consonance with ʾarî and with ḥûṣ). Rāṣaḥ elsewhere denotes taking innocent human innocent life [sic] by another human being either intentionally (= murder) or unintentionally (= manslaughter, Exod 20:13; Num 35:6, 11, 16, 30). Here it is uniquely used of an animal, probably as a hyperbole and/or a metonymy. The former depicts the enormity and horror of the wrong done to him as an innocent victim; the latter means, the one forcing him into the plaza is guilty of murdering him. As good as represents his figurative language. By absurdly claiming there is a lion in the street that will kill him, he excuses himself from leaving the amenities of his home and his free meals, which others have provided, to venture the hard work that builds a community."
NET Bible Note:
tc The LXX changes the phrase to read “murderers in the street” to form a better parallelism, possibly because the verb רָצַח (ratsakh) is used only of humans, not wild animals. The NIV attempts to solve the problem by making the second line a separate claim by the sluggard: “or, ‘I will be murdered in the streets!’”
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