21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 3:5-6 final

Genesis 3:5-6

 

ה כִּ֚י יֹדֵ֣עַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים כִּ֗י בְּיוֹם֙ אֲכָלְכֶ֣ם מִמֶּ֔נּוּ וְנִפְקְח֖וּ עֵֽינֵיכֶ֑ם וִֽהְיִיתֶם֙ כֵּֽאלֹהִ֔ים יֹֽדְעֵ֖י ט֥וֹב וָרָֽע:

ו וַתֵּ֣רֶא הָֽאִשָּׁ֡ה כִּ֣י טוֹב֩ הָעֵ֨ץ לְמַֽאֲכָ֜ל וְכִ֧י תַֽאֲוָה־ה֣וּא לָֽעֵינַ֗יִם וְנֶחְמָ֤ד הָעֵץ֙ לְהַשְׂכִּ֔יל וַתִּקַּ֥ח מִפִּרְי֖וֹ וַתֹּאכַ֑ל וַתִּתֵּ֧ן גַּם־לְאִישָׁ֛הּ עִמָּ֖הּ וַיֹּאכַֽל:

 

Translation:     For Gd knows that on the day of your eating from it, your eyes will be opened; you will be like Gd, knowers of good and evil.

The woman must have seen that the tree was good for food, and an attraction to the eyes, and the tree was desirable for enlightening, so she took some of its fruit and ate; she gave also to her man with her and he ate.

 

Now notice what the woman does. Va-tere is from raah, “see”, and it’s a certainty epistemic in its evidentiary form; a certainty epistemic at the start of a verse requires evidence that it’s true and most of the time it is in the same verse. There’s an exception in Genesis 14 but that’s outside the scope of this course.  When you get there you can email  any questions to me.

 

The evidence is always in narrative past. Here it’s va-tiqach.

 

The problem is that tere does not have the normal vowels for qal or hifil, and it’s also not an agentless binyan. This verb form shows up with the vav about 31 times and 3 times in the masculine form, throughout Tannakh. When it’s at the start of a verse, as it is here, it seems to have the same connotation: it impels the woman to action based on something she knows, instead of begging evidence to support the claim that the verb makes. It’s her knowledge that makes this form an epistemic.

 

Notice all the aspectless verbs in these verses:

Akhalkhem

L’maakhal

L’haskil

 

Akhalkhem reflects that they haven’t eaten yet; the snake can’t just use imperfect without the vav because that would make him look like a prophet. It would just be wrong.  Obviously he can’t use perfect aspect and the context doesn’t allow for any of the connotations of progressive aspect. Aspectless verbs show up where the aspects all give false impressions of how to understand what’s going on.

 

L’haskil is from a root sakal meaning to have insight or act wisely. The hifil has a special meaning which would have resonated strongly in the 1700s CE. The European enlightenment movement came into Jewish culture as the haskalah. From about the time of the American Revolution to the accession of Nikolai II in Tsarist Russia, this movement eventually led to a fairly large flow of Jews into secular lifestyles, though its original aim was only to make them more aware of European culture. One notable founding member was Moses Mendelssohn, father of Felix Mendelson the composer.

 

Anyway the situations here can’t use conjugated verbs.

 

And now gam. I think this is the first time we had it. It’s an emphatic. It marks something that is either unexpected or has no prior cause. The woman has been worried up to now about her own self. Now she gives to Adam. Gam is only used with substantives: nouns, substantivized adjectives (“the X one”), gerundives. Later there will be situations where an imperfect verb carries the action, but there’s a gerundive with gam. Sometimes it will be an aspectless verb.