All right. You’ve
been meditating on Exodus 21:24-25. You
can repeat it in your sleep. You know
every word. You’ve looked up every word
and you know what it means.
So what does it mean?
Here’s the Hebrew written out in English letters. This is called a transliteration. I won’t do it every time but I think it’s
worthwhile here. If you are using my
Hebrew language lessons, you will see each verse transliterated and you can learn
to do it for yourself but you will get more out of Torah if you learn to read
the Hebrew because the lessons will end at some point – unless people beg and
plead for me to continue – since I will believe that everybody has learned to
fish.
Ayin
tachat ayinShen tachat shen
Yad tachat yad
Regel tachat regel
Kviyah tachat kviyah
Petsa tachat petsa
Chaburah tachat chaburah
“Tachat” is an important word. Normally it means “under”. If you’ve ever heard anybody talk about a tuchis
you were hearing the Yiddish version of this word, which means your backside.
Now look at your English version and think of it as saying
“under” instead of “for.”
What does that mean?
Not very much, huh?
So if the meaning of tachat isn’t the normal “under,”
what do you think of the idea that it also doesn’t mean “for” as your urban
legends say.
So what do your urban legends say this means? I think I know the answer to that. You were taught that it means “A has to take
out B’s eye, if B took out A’s eye.” And
so on.
But that requires a verb.
There’s no verb above. Tachat
is not a verb. It doesn’t have a verbal, that is an action, meaning.
Now, one thing you need to know about Hebrew is, it’s one of
those languages that can leave the word “is” out of a sentence and still have a
sentence. So do it. Think of your English version with the phrase
“is under” instead of “for”. Still
doesn’t make sense, does it.
Now go over it again, and plug in “is for”. What does that mean?
It doesn’t mean “take out.”
“Take out” is an active verb. “Is
for” is not an active verb.
For next time, add Exodus 21:18-19 and 22. Meditate on them. Combine them with verses 24 and 25. We are now expanding your context because the
original two verses didn’t mean what you were taught they mean. They’re too restricted. They have been taken out of context. Restoring them to their context will explain
to you what Torah really means by those verses.
Get used to it. I’m going to do
this over and over and over, because it’s the first step in learning how to fish.© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved
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