NET & Zechariah 12:10

[Nick Laurence]

The NET has a footnote on Zec 12:10 which says:

Because of the difficulty of the concept of the mortal piercing of God, the subject of this clause, and the shift of pronoun from “me” to “him” in the next, many mss read
אַלֵי אֵת אֲשֶׁר (’ale ’et ’asher, “to the one whom,” a reading followed by NAB, NRSV) rather than the MT’s
אֵלַי אֵת אֲשֶׁר (’ela ’et ’asher, “to me whom”).

(or it does on the online version - Bibleworks crunches the Hebrew font in my set-up)

I'm probably missing something obvious; I understand אֵלַי to be "to me" ("to" with pronominal suffix). Can anyone give me the lexical form and any parsing of the differently vowel-pointed אַלֵי? I can't find any other biblical example of this word.

Thanks.

[bkMitchell]

Okay here is the full quote from the NET Bible notes in Bibleworks9:

¹⁵ tc Because of the difficulty of the concept of the mortal piercing of God, the subject of this clause, and the shift of pronoun from "me" to "him" in the next, many MSS read *אַלֵי אֵת אֲשֶׁר‎‏‎ ('ale 'et 'asher, "to the one whom," a reading followed by NAB, NRSV) rather than the MT's*אֵלַי אֵת אֲשֶׁר‎‏‎ ('ela 'et 'asher, "to me whom"). The reasons for such alternatives, however, are clear – they are motivated by scribes who found such statements theologically objectionable – and they should be rejected in favor of the more difficult reading (lectio difficilior) of the MT.

I think that line of thought squares with Walter Kaiser interpretation except on the number of manuscripts that contain the alternative reading:

Footnoted on page 244 of Messiah in the Old Testament by Walter Kaiser

While, a few manuscripts do read "him" instead of "me," all the ancient versions, the greater majority of Hebrew manuscripts (including all the better text) read "me". It appears that the marginal reading in some later Hebrew manuscripts crept into few texts, but witness of the better texts remains united in its reading of the first person singular pronoun.

The apparatus of the BHS on page 1078 has the following textual notes:

^b–b var lect; l אֶל־ vel אֱלֵי־

I think you're on the right track and that you're asking the right questions, but I have no idea were the NET bible's translators get אַלֵי from. I do not of any manuscripts that have a reading with that pointing and the BHS' apparatus gives אֱלֵי־ (which appears in the Hebrew Bible 4 times and only in Job) rather than the NET Bible'sאַלֵי (which does not appear in the Hebrew Bible) that leads me to assume that the NET Bible translators or the people typing the text made a mistake. The word אַל does appear in the Tanakh 729 times and in five forms, but only as a negation and not with this pointing אַלֵי. If such a word(phrase) did appear I'd guess it meant "not me" and that it would be in construction state. Perhaps, however, the editors of the NET meant עַל which does or can mean to and could also have the right pointing and sound basically like what the NET editors suggest.

[DavidR]

I haven't used it much, but I've already seen a couple of what I would call proofreading issues in the NET Bible's use of Hebrew. Two examples from Psalm 56:

In the title, NET transliterates יוֹנַת אֵלֶם רְחֹקִים as yonath-elem-rechovim. Obviously that should be rechoqim. (They also seem to vary between ch and kh to represent khet.)

In note 22 to Ps. 56:7, NET says, "The negative particle אַיִן‎‏‎ ('ayin, 'there is not,' which is due to dittography of the immediately preceding אָוֶן‎‏‎, 'aven, 'wickedness'), should probably be added before 'deliverance.'" Technically the absolute form of the negative particle is indeed אַיִן‎‏‎, "nothing, no one"; but what would be added here would be the construct form אֵין.

So, Nick, I wouldn't fret too long over an unexpected or impossible Hebrew form in the NET Bible notes! OTOH, it might be a good thing to contact them and let them know. I presume they're always interested in improving their product.

[Nick Laurence]

Brian and David, many thanks for those very helpful thoughts and points. It certainly is a relief that I’m not going totally doolally when I don’t recognize אַלֵי.

Brian, I too had considered אַל+ pronominal suffix, but like you I ruled it out as I’ve never seen such a construction and Bibleworks doesn’t find any (of any person). I didn’t know about אֱלֵי – interesting, and I’ll definitely look into this.

I think on reflection you might be right that the NET translators had a form of עַל in mind, which has got garbled (and David points out that garbling is not unknown for NET footnotes). However, if this is the case then someone at the NET has managed to multiply the mistakes in what they’ve put as עַלֵי (with the tsere) doesn’t exist as far as I can tell (with 1cs suffix it should be עָלַי). Alternatively, of course, they might have meant אֱלֵי which you've cleverly found, which would mean they only got the first vowel wrong and has the advantage that you could translate it into English in the way they suggest.


(Brian) David, I’ve taken up your suggestion and reported this to the NET asking them to review. I’ve always liked the footnotes in the NET (normally both the quantity and the calibre), even where I’ve disagreed with them. I take the point that there are some errors, but I do hope they can make headway sorting those out.


There seem to be a lot of issues with this verse, and I don't seem to be able to make sense of it without some degree of emendation. But figuring out how to do that means choosing between a number of different possibilities.

[Nick Laurence]

BTW, does everyone else get garbled Hebrew in NET notes in Bibleworks? Or have I got a setting wrong in BW? Should I report this to staff?

Regards

[Jim Wert]

Nick,
Which edition of BW are you using? BW7 and BW8 had quite a few garbled NET footnotes.
BW claimed that for BW9 they fixed up a lot of the NET notes. I haven't noticed any garbled ones in BW9, but I haven't been actively looking for them.
Oh, and are you talking about the Analysis pane, or the NET Verse pane (which is new in BW9)?
If it is in BW9, yes it would be good to let them know.
--Jim

[Nick Laurence]

Jim, hmm, well that's interesting. To answer your questions first, I'm using BW9. I read the notes almost exclusively in the Analysis Pane. I've just turned to the NET Notes window and yes that's much better. So in the Analysis Pane on Zec 12:10 the Hebrew comes out as:

אשֶׁר tae ylea;

i.e. a horrible mixture (and not easily understable), whereas in the NET notes window you correctly get:

אַלֵי אֵת אֲשֶׁר

which is a joy to read (well, in comparison, and ignoring the grammatical abnormality which is what the note is all about!)

I think I'll report this anyway. Really it should work in the Analysis Pane; I'm surprised there's any difference between the two.

[DavidR]

I've been using the NET notes in the Verse tab in the Analysis Window. I just no checked Zech 12:10 in the Analysis tab in that window, and I see the same thing that Nick sees there, whereas the Hebrew is at least displayed correctly in the Verse tab.

[Jim Wert]

Really it should work in the Analysis Pane; I'm surprised there's any difference between the two.

The following, which probably tells you much more than you want to know, is based on my understanding, as a user, of how BW does some of the things it does. Since it is based mostly on deduction it may well be wrong in some parts.

Version footnotes that appear in the Analysis pane are formatted by means of markup codes.
Things that appear in the Verse pane also exist as MS help modules, accessible via the "Resources" menu item.

The default download of NET from Bible.org is as a MS help module (at least it was when I downloaded it), so it was probably fairly straightforward for BW to modify it to work in the Verse pane.
But the NET version footnotes would be quite tricky to handle -- applying the right formatting tags, as well as putting the right values within the tags to get the correct characters displayed. It appears that in this case the BW Version Compiler thought that it had reached the end of the Hebrew characters before it actually did. (It seems to have interpreted the "]" character as a closing tag.)

I used the Export Database Tool on Zec 12:10 with the following result. Note the red bits:
<h> which means beginning of Hebrew font,
] which I assume is supposed to be a vowel but seems to be interpreted as end of Hebrew font, and
</h> which means end of Hebrew font, but is ignored.

Zec 12:10 "I will pour out on the kingship<N14> of David and the population of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication so that they will look to me,<N15> the one they have pierced. They will lament for him as one laments for an only son, and there will be a bitter cry for him like the bitter cry for a firstborn.<N16> {<p>¹⁴ <b>tn</b> Or "dynasty"; <i>Heb</i> "house."<p>¹⁵ <b>tc</b> Because of the difficulty of the concept of the mortal piercing of God, the subject of this clause, and the shift of pronoun from "me" to "him" in the next, many MSS read <h>rv,a] tae ylea;</h> ('<i>ale </i>'<i>et </i>'<i>asher</i>, "to the one whom," a reading followed by NAB, NRSV) rather than the MT's <h>rv,a] tae yl;ae</h> ('<i>ela </i>'<i>et </i>'<i>asher</i>, "to me whom"). The reasons for such alternatives, however, are clear – they are motivated by scribes who found such statements theologically objectionable – and they should be rejected in favor of the more difficult reading (<i>lectio difficilior</i>) of the MT.<p><b>tn</b> Or "on me."<p>¹⁶ <b>tn</b> The Hebrew term <h>rAkB.</h> (<i>b®khor</i>, "firstborn"), translated usually in the LXX by <g>prwto,tokoj</g> (<i>proÒtotokos</i>), has unmistakable messianic overtones as the use of the Greek term in the NT to describe Jesus makes clear (cf. <link b="Col 1:15">Col 1:15</>, <link b="Col 1:18">18</>). Thus, the idea of God being pierced sets the stage for the fatal wounding of Jesus, the Messiah and the Son of God (cf. <link b="Joh 19:37">John 19:37</>; <link b="Rev 1:7">Rev 1:7</>). Note that some English translations supply "son" from the context (e.g., NIV, TEV, NLT). }

[Nick Laurence]

Jim, thanks for the very detailed reply. My experience certainly fits in with what you suggest, although I haven't done the detailed analysis you have.

I've now reported the fault to BW, so thanks everyone again for your contributions.