21st Century Bible Hebrew -- analyzing oblique modality

Genesis 3:22-24

 

כב וַיֹּאמֶר ׀ יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים הֵן הָאָדָם הָיָה כְּאַחַד מִמֶּנּוּ לָדַעַת טוֹב וָרָע וְעַתָּה ׀ פֶּן־יִשְׁלַח יָדוֹ וְלָקַח גַּם מֵעֵץ הַחַיִּים וְאָכַל וָחַי לְעֹלָם:

כג וַיְשַׁלְּחֵהוּ יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים מִגַּן־עֵדֶן לַעֲבֹד אֶת־הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר לֻקַּח מִשָּׁם:

כד וַיְגָרֶשׁ אֶת־הָאָדָם וַיַּשְׁכֵּן מִקֶּדֶם לְגַן־עֵדֶן אֶת־הַכְּרֻבִים וְאֵת לַהַט הַחֶרֶב הַמִּתְהַפֶּכֶת לִשְׁמֹר אֶת־דֶּרֶךְ עֵץ הַחַיִּים:

 

Translation:     The Lord Gd said behold the man has become like one with us knowing good and evil; but now lest he send out his hand so that he takes from the tree of life such that he eats and lives forever...

The Lord Gd sent him from the garden of Eden, for the purpose of working the earth from which he had been taken.

He completely broke with the man: He set eastward of the garden of Eden the keruvim and the flash of the sword that keeps revolving for the purpose of guarding the path of the tree of life.

This lesson has good examples of what the oblique modality is all about.

 

I’m going to point out something that ruins the work of analysts who don’t know Biblical Hebrew. a trop that helps me parse this out. Notice above elohim, yado, and ha-kruvim there is a revia. It divides that word or section from the rest of the verse. So in verse 22, it sets off the opening from what Gd actually said.

 

Then up to the point of yado, we have first, what we already know about the effect of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and a proposition, that people might also eat from the tree of life.

 

There is an oblique modality after that, v’laqach gam me-ets ha-chaim v’akhal va-chai l’olam. This is what Gd believes will result if they are allowed continued access to the tree of life.

 

You will never have an oblique modality without a prior clause citing known facts. When you find vav plus perfect aspect plus subject as the only clause of a verse, you need to look at the previous text for the known information which is the basis for agreeing that the oblique modality is also going to come about.

 

The first part of verse 22 doesn’t provide that information. It only remarks that people are now “as one with Gd” knowing good and evil. The connection to a tree is several verses back, no later than verse 17.

 

There are three components to understanding any language. One is the words, of course, but only in the cultural context: I discussed that with melakhah.

 

The grammar is second, because it encodes nuances not contained in the words. This is the issue of evidentiary and certainty epistemics, the use of v’hayah, and the oblique modality.

 

But none of it works when taken out of context and that’s what we have here with this oblique modality. The immediately context of the verse is not enough to tell us why Gd thinks the people will eat from the other tree. And the entire narrative takes its information from the culture that transmitted it, as I will show.

 

And then I will do one final post about the overall  context of the narrative, which I’ve been hinting at almost from the start of this blog.

 

There’s a rabbinical saying, “Turn it over and over, you’ll never get to the end of it.” I thought I had gotten to the end of it after 20 years. Then I “met” Mr Olrik, Dr. Cook, and Rabbi Bechhofer, and I had to start all over.