Genesis DONE! I did it!

That was a very satisfying exercise!   Finished off chapter 50 of Genesis (Joseph dies, extracts promise from brothers to take his bones home) and even figured out that little Hebrew verse at the end of the chapter in the BHS (Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia) which I am pretty sure says that I have just completed 1534 verses.  It is unpointed Hebrew (no vowel marks) and I suspect might not even be BH, since I couldn't find some words in HALOT.   Maybe it's Rabbinic Hebrew or Mishnaic Hebrew or one of the other Hebrew dialects?

Regardless.  I READ THE BOOK OF GENESIS IN HEBREW!!   ALL OF IT!!!

I am very pleased with myself and am looking forward to Exodus.

My study of Waltke & O'Connor is coming along nicely too.  The introductory matter is not all my cup of tea (history of the language), but some of it is exactly my cup of tea (writing systems, linguistics).  Fun, fun, fun!!

Verses that caught my eye in Genesis 49 and 50:

Verse 49:11, "he washes his garments in wine and his robe in the blood of grapes"
The word for robe (or garment) is סוּת.  Which is pronounced... er... "suit".  That struck me as really funny!

49:25, ...by the God of your father, who will help you,

by the Almighty who will bless you

with blessings of heaven above,

blessings of the deep that lies beneath,

blessings of the breasts and of the womb. 

The word for breasts is the root word for Almighty and the word for womb is the root for compassion/mercy.  Keep that in mind, Oh ye who think of God in purely masculine terms.

Chapter 50 surprised me with all the embalming going on, but I guess since they were in Egypt it makes perfect sense.

I also discovered (at Gen 49.23) a great expression for archers:  בַּעֲלֵי חִצִּם, ba'aley hhitsim, masters of arrows!

Amazing how much I learn when I give up daytime TV for Lent!

New York, family stuff, and Genesis 47

I haven't posted for a while.  I took a brief interlude in New York with my eldest child, wandering through the Cloisters museum, the Strand bookstore and the Palm Court in the Plaza Hotel.  We were in town mostly to catch The Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder at the Walter Kerr Theatre - an absolute gem of a musical, based on the same story as the classic movie Kind Hearts and Coronets.  Like Alec Guinness in the movie, Jefferson Mays plays 8 different characters in the play.  Such fun!!

The Strand bookstore was my daughter's choice, but we both lucked out there.  After lending out my copy of Rumer Godden's In this House of Brede more times than I can remember, and having replaced it twice, I found 2 copies of the original Viking Press hardback, one of them in pristine condition!!!  This was a major coup, as the new edition put out by Loyola Press was very poorly proofread, in my opinion.

The Cloisters Museum was a wonderful way to spend a cold and snowy morning.  This was my destination of choice, as I wanted to see the Merode Altarpiece (Annunciation from the workshop of Roger Campin, the Master of Flemalle).

I was able to spend a lot of time peering quite closely at the triptych, for which I am so grateful!  What a gift!  The Cloisters houses a great collection of medieval religious art and is also the home of a number of unicorn tapestries.

So with all this and travel (don't ask) I get home and my mother is hospitalized.  So I try to spend some of every day with her and my dad and Hebrew gets left by the wayside.  AND I get a cold!!  Airplane germs?  Hospital germs?  I don't know, but I'm quarantining myself for a few days and so I had some time to finally finish Genesis 47.

Egypt buckles under the famine, but Joseph buys up everyone's land and in fact everyone!  All Egypt is owned by Pharaoh, and Joseph doles out food in his name.  Israel and the clan settle in Goshen in Egypt and Jacob/Israel extracts a promise from Joseph to bury him among his ancestors when he dies.

This is a strange promise - a put your hand under my thigh kind of promise.  A strange custom, to be sure.

With Lent beginning this week, I am planning to spend a little more time with Hebrew - Hebrew Syntax!  I thought with a little discipline I might actually work my way through Williams' Hebrew Syntax.  Or maybe even Waltke and O'Connor's Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax.  I'll try them both out and see which is more accessible for an "independent scholar".