21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 2:17, the death penalty

Genesis 2:17

 

יז וּמֵעֵ֗ץ הַדַּ֨עַת֙ ט֣וֹב וָרָ֔ע לֹ֥א תֹאכַ֖ל מִמֶּ֑נּוּ כִּ֗י בְּי֛וֹם אֲכָלְךָ֥ מִמֶּ֖נּוּ מ֥וֹת תָּמֽוּת:

 

Translation:     But from the tree of knowing good and evil, you will not eat of it ; because on the day of your eating from it MOT TAMUT.

 

Now we deal with the trees after the etnach in that other verse. Or at least we deal with one of them. The last one in the verse.

 

And here is another duplicate conditional and you will see almost this exact phrase over and over again in Torah. MOT TAMUT and its relatives mean “once due process has been satisified, if you are convicted, you are going to have to die.”

 

THIS IS THE DEATH PENALTY.  Obviously the conditions for this haven’t occurred yet, but Gd is giving Adam a heads-up: eating from this specific tree makes him liable to the death penalty.

 

The contexts in which the other forms of this phrase occurs all have to do with the death penalty in Jewish law. They include Exodus 21:15-17, Exodus 22:18, Exodus 31:14-15, Leviticus 20:2, Leviticus 20:10-13, Leviticus 20:15-16, Leviticus 20:27, Leviticus 21:9, Leviticus 24:16, Numbers 15:35, Deuteronomy 13:1-12, and Deuteronomy 22:20-21.

 

When this comes up again, I’ll point out the conditions under which the death penalty comes into play.

 

Also notice the aspectless verb with the object suffix, akhalkha. Again, this is a timing phrase, like b’yom asot at the start of the narrative.

 

NOW the narrative has us watching for Adam to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because use of the duplicate conditional means that the conditions under which he eats from it might be deadly. Then again, they might not.

 

The trees were brought up in the previous verse only so that these two trees could be made exceptions. In Genesis 9:3, the eating of meat is brought up, on purpose to introduce the subject so as to make the exception in verse 4, which prohibits eating blood and what is cut from a living animal. Now going back to Genesis 1:29-30, there’s no exception made. What’s the cultural significance?

 

There’s no absolute commandment in all of Jewish law to eat meat. If there were, poor people would be violating that commandment most of their lives. Meat was terribly expensive because most meat animals were also sources of labor, wool, and milk. Birds provided eggs. For enjoyment on Shabbat and festivals, the rabbis did all they could to bring meat within the means of the poor, requiring a butcher to slaughter on Friday or the day before festivals even if he would lose money on it. But equally there is no prohibition on eating meat in Jewish law, as long as it is kosher and not consumed on a day of fasting. So I don’t believe that chapter 1:29-30 commanded restricting food to plants.

 

Culture capsule: Why is this tree called ha-daat? Most translations say it means “knowledge” but in Hebrew that would be y’diah. In Jewish culture daat is the ability to form legal intent. It is inherent in adults of sound mind and senses, an issue that will come up soon. People with daat can testify in court and execute contracts. Such is not true for people of unsound mind or senses because it’s hard to know when they know what they’re doing. It’s also not true for non-adults or for animals. The rest of the narrative will turn on daat so pay attention.

 

By the way, this verse has a revia, a zaqef qatan, an etnach and a revia, so you can see the differences between these punctuation marks.