21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 2:9, no "et"

Genesis 2:9

 

ט וַיַּצְמַ֞ח יְהוָֹ֤ה אֱלֹהִים֙ מִן־הָ֣אֲדָמָ֔ה כָּל־עֵ֛ץ נֶחְמָ֥ד לְמַרְאֶ֖ה וְט֣וֹב לְמַֽאֲכָ֑ל וְעֵ֤ץ הַֽחַיִּים֙ בְּת֣וֹךְ הַגָּ֔ן וְעֵ֕ץ הַדַּ֖עַת ט֥וֹב וָרָֽע:

 

Translation:     **** Gd made sprout from the earth every tree pleasant for looking at and good for eating; the tree of life in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

נֶחְמָד	pleasant
לְמַרְאֶה	for looking at
לְמַאֲכָל	For eating
חַיִּים	life
בְּתוֹךְ	In the middle of
דַּעַת	knowledge
רָע	Evil, bad

 

The only way you won’t know how to pronounce “life” right off the bat is if you’ve never seen Fiddler on the Roof. L’chaim is a toast meaning “to life”.

 

Mareh and maakhal are verbal nouns. The verbs are raah, “see, look at” and akhal, “eat”. Why did I translate them as gerundives?

 

Because the verbal form that is used substantively is a gerundive. I’m trying to beat the infinitive concept out of your head, and saying “to eat” would undo all my hard work.

 

It’s also not appropriate to say “for food” because there’s no parallel way to word l’mareh. “For sight” is just clumsy. I can get parallel structure, and escape backtracking, and at the same time reflect how the language really works, with “for” plus a gerund. This is just one more example of how a good translation goes the extra mile instead of just grabbing the first convenient substitute.

 

Note kal-ets. There’s no et to tell you if this is “all trees” or “every tree”. The context leans in the direction of “every”. Which et would you use if there was one to get “every”? That’s right, the one with segol.

 

But why isn’t it there? Well, that’s a dangerous question to ask in grammar. What you have to ask is “does this context fit with the syntax or meaning that would use et?” And then you need to tick off why it does or does not fit.

 

Why would we not use collective et here? Because after the etnach two distinct trees are called out, and collective et would draw them into the context of food trees.

Why didn’t it use distinctive et to distinguish the food trees from these two trees? Well, we’ll see an example later of how the segolate et can hint that the noun it’s attached to fell short of standards. These trees can’t do that. At the same time, the fruit trees also are not sub-standard.