21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 2:23, qual binyan

Genesis 2:23

 

כג וַיֹּ֘אמֶר֘ הָֽאָדָם֒ זֹ֣את הַפַּ֗עַם עֶ֚צֶם מֵֽעֲצָמַ֔י וּבָשָׂ֖ר מִבְּשָׂרִ֑י לְזֹאת֙ יִקָּרֵ֣א אִשָּׁ֔ה כִּ֥י מֵאִ֖ישׁ לֻֽקֳחָה־זֹּֽאת:

 

Translation:     The man said this, this time, is a bone from my bones, and flesh from my flesh; this shall be called woman for from man this was taken.

 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

זֹאת	this
פַּעַם	time
עֶצֶם	Bone

 

Yes, I played a trick on you last time; there was no zaqef in that verse. There was a little curve but no zaqef.

 

In this verse we have an agentless structure: me-ish luqachah zot. We know perfectly well who the agent was, He is named in the previous verses. What’s important is what the action says about the narrative.

 

Luqachah is in what I call qual binyan, perfect aspect, 3^rd singular feminine. So it has important consequences later on, although the action is completely finished. There’s no midrash on this so I’ll stop with – we’ll see what it is later. It involves this verb again.

 

Laqach can mean buy or acquire. In other words a contract with consideration. In Jewish law there is no marriage without consideration on both sides: he has to sign up to the ketubbah which settles money on her. She can earn money by her activities; for example, one woman can process one or two fleeces a week into yarn and then make cloth, or she can turn out about 20 pounds of goat cheese. This money goes to her husband to pay her maintenance. If he refuses to spend it on that, she keeps it to maintain herself.

 

In this one case in all the world, the man acquired the woman in marriage from himself. It’s the only time in history such a thing was possible. In all other cases, the man acquires the woman from her family, or from herself. The marriage between Adam and Chavvah was the exception proving that there’s an opposite law, which is not mentioned because the opposite law is the normal case.

 

So that sort of reverses the play on who is the agent in this verse. Is it really Gd, or is it the man acquiring his wife?