Translation talk:1 Kings

Chapter 1:1-3 Sources
I'm moving this here. It's the sources consulted for the work done so far on chapter 1 (not my work).


 * Consulted Septuagint
 * Consulted Masoretic Hebrew Bible
 * Consulted King James Version
 * Consulted Geneva Bible
 * Consulted Josephus Alephb (talk) 21:32, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Sources: 1:4 through the end of the book
I've added a base translation for chapter 2. It's from the Masoretic Text. I translated it with the Masoretic Text and the KJV in front of me, and consulted Gesenius' Lexicon here and there. Alephb (talk) 21:34, 21 May 2017 (UTC). Chapter 3, same thing. Alephb (talk) 23:14, 21 May 2017 (UTC). Ditto for chapter 4. Ditto for 1:4-53. Alephb (talk) 12:37, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm also consulting any public domain source that strikes me as potentially useful whenever the urge strikes. Alephb (talk) 22:27, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

These same things for all o' the chapters before mentioned in the title(as I assume for that it's true for all o' the other books that the before saying userAlephb] has done) JustinCB (talk) 12:06, 12 December 2017 (UTC)


 * As with other sections, I've felt free to use phrasing I see in public domain sources such as the KJV, RV, and so on. I've also made reference to the International Critical Commentary series, in this case to James Montgomery's commentary on Kings. Alephb (talk) 03:56, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Bath(unit)
Is this unit approximately the size of a bath(around 20 gallons, as I've been told), or would it make more sense to use bat? JustinCB (talk) 01:01, 12 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm just using bath because it's conventional. In Modern Hebrew, it would be pronounced bat. Alephb (talk) 12:17, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

But bat would cause less confusion, as it's 6 gallons, not the size of a bath(seems more like a demijohn if you're translating it[a demijon is a large jug in ametuar winemaking, usually made in the size of 6 gallons]). JustinCB (talk) 16:38, 12 December 2017 (UTC)


 * My M.O. is usually to use conventional transliterations of Hebrew words, and then use footnotes to clear up any transliteration. But if you think a reader would be tripped up by that, feel free to do what you like. If you go with bat, I'd just like there to be something in the footnote about what the more conventional spelling is, in case people want to try to look it up on their own. Alephb (talk) 19:07, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

I changed it to demijohn(object if you don't like it). The standard demijohn is 6 gallons, about the same as a Hebrew bath(it would be a strange coincidence if the Hebrew unit came from the size of winemaking jugs). JustinCB (talk) 03:12, 13 December 2017 (UTC)


 * The footnote should do the job fine. Alephb (talk) 12:22, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

By the way, the unit "bath" that I translated "demijon" was, in the revision attributed to John Purvey of the bible translation attributed to John Wycliffe, translated as "mesuris clepid bathus", that is, in Modern English, "measures called baths". The measure that I translated(with the transliteration that is common or not), "cors", the aforementioned revision put "mesuris clepid chorus", which, in Modern English, would be "measures called chors"("chors" might be a Vulgate spelling). Not sure how usefull they would be, though, for they might interrupt the flow of the passage. JustinCB (talk) 13:59, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Hirom vs. Hiriam
Do you think it's possible that "Hirom" is a mistake(as, if I remember right, the vowel marks are tiny and off to the top or bottom. If so, we could amend it to Hiriam like normal.   JustinCB (talk) 01:07, 12 December 2017 (UTC)


 * A lot of vowel marks are off to the top or bottom. In this case, the "o" in Hirom is a consonant in the pre-vowelled text. "Hrwm" instead of "Hrm." This consonant-for-vowel trick is called Mater lectionis. Yeah, it's probably a simple mistake, and I wouldn't object if you amend it. I was simply sticking rigidly to the exact wording because there seem to be two characters in play who are possibly confused in some way. There Hiram king of Tyre, and Hiram the half-Israelite craftsman. Alephb (talk) 12:16, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Are the two names spelled differently(the king of tyre is always Hiriam and the craftsman is always Hirowm)? If so, it makes sense to have the names different. JustinCB (talk) 16:42, 12 December 2017 (UTC)


 * No, it's inconsistant. There "Hiram," "Hirom," and "Huram" in the Hebrew. If you want to clean it up, feel free. I hope you don't mind if I leave little footnotes in about the spelling differences, though. Just for the record, the majority of cases have "Hiram." As far as I know there's no "Hiriam." Alephb (talk) 19:09, 12 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I mispelled it, then. The only person I've heard of named "Hiriam" is "Hiriam King Williams", who is more commonly known as "Hank Williams"(I think his given name might've been a mispeling of "Hiram", though).  Isn't it "Hirowm" or "Hirwm", not "Hirom"?


 * Well, in consonants it would be spelled hrwm, while it would be pronounced hirom. If you spell it Hirowm, you could give the impression that there's a "w" and an "o", but there's just a w pronounced as o. If you spelled it Hirwm, you'd be showing one of the vowels in the word as a vowel, but not the other. I suppose you could transliterate it one of those two ways, but nobody does, except for Strong's Concordance (at least the online versions), which would write Hirowm. Alephb (talk) 23:29, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

"Hirowm" would be(unless you're pronouncing it ouch ouch ouch) pronounced with a long "o"(then again, I spelled "yow" for "yo"...) JustinCB (talk) 03:16, 13 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Okay, I see what you're getting at. But all o sounds in standard Hebrew transliterations are the same -- roughly like the o in oak. Whether a w gets put in or not is more a matter of scribal practice than anything else. So, to simplify, the Masoretic Text tended to less matres, the Samaritan Pentateuch used more, and the Dead Sea Scrolls used them most of all. To use a silly example, in "Masoretic Style" one might write jck 'nd jll wnt 'p th hll tw ftch ' pyl 'f wtr, while a more "full" style might write j'ck 'nd jyll wynt 'p thh hyll tw fytch ' pyl 'f wtr. Both texts would be pronounced identically: "Jack and Jill ..." However, the more full style would basically contain more hints to the reader about where the vowels go. Alephb (talk) 12:33, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Alright, I understand now, and doesen't the Masoritic text mark the vowels(so it doesn't need consonent vowels so much)? Wouldn't it then be like the vowels were subscripts: "jack 'and..." JustinCB (talk) 13:18, 13 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Whether the Masoretic Vowels marks the vowels is a tricky question. On synagogue scrolls, no. On scrolls for study, yes. The degree of consonant-vowels is the same in either version. But historically, before about a thousand years ago, all scrolls were unvowelled, whether proto-Masoretic, or Qumran, or what have you.


 * The points are a little bit like your illustration, with one important difference. Instead of being subscript like in English, the vowels are inserted above or below the consonants in such a way that they do not have to move the consonants at all.


 * A really neat tool is here: . It shows you the unpointed (unvowelled except for matres) text starting at Genesis 1. It's a tool to help people memorize the vowels in passages. If you hover the mouse over any Hebrew word, the points (vowels plus accent marks) appear. Notice that the words do not move at all. It doesn't render perfectly, so occasionally a word will jump a little when you hover, but in real life the additional points do not move the consonantal text at all. You could take an unpointed text, if you wanted, and write in all the points afterward just fine. That's a real convenience produced by the point-makers. When points were invented, it wasn't necessarily necessary to produce all new manuscripts. You could just touch up existing ones. Alephb (talk) 17:21, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

That's neat. Note that you wouldn't neccessarily have to create a brand new manuscript because you could scrape the ink off a word, rub it down, and write it again, as, for example, Orm(monk, author of the Ormulum, attempter of spelling reform) in his manuscript of the Ormulum(Early Middle English collection of homelies), after writing a few thousand lines, went back and changed the Old English spelling "heo" to the phonetic "he". JustinCB (talk) 03:30, 14 December 2017 (UTC)


 * In Jewish circles, customs against defacing or destroying documents with the name of God written on them would have made that unlikely. Alephb (talk) 12:01, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Oh, OK. I thought the Masorites burnt the old manuscripts not of their tradition, though... JustinCB (talk) 12:13, 14 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I would be surprised if they did. The usual practice, as far as I've ever heard, is storage in a genizah, followed by burial. Alephb (talk) 12:41, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Are the places where the dead sea scrolls and quamran genizahs? JustinCB (talk) 23:19, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

"put to death" vs. "kill by knife"
Is there an idiomatic reason to translate the hebrew as "put to death" instead of "murder with a knife/knives" or "knife to death"? JustinCB (talk) 03:02, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

This question also goes for "kill violently" vs "kill by dagger". JustinCB (talk) 03:24, 12 December 2017 (UTC)


 * All right (I think I see what you're referring to in chap 2, but maybe there's other verses too). Let's start with 2:8. First, I think we can eliminate the word "murder." The verb used here, mut, is a general word for "kill," rather than a specific word for "murder." And the context leads away from murder -- the idea is that David would be within his rights to kill Shimei, but swore not to. The wording used for what David swore not to do is, literally, "kill by sword/knife/dagger." But does the phrase mean that David is swearing not to kill Shimei in one particular way, or does it mean that David is swearing not to kill Shimei in general. I think the story only makes sense if David's oath not to "kill by sword" Shimei is something more general than the English "kill with a knife" would suggest. Otherwise, David wouldn't have needed to wait to have Solomon do it after David's death -- he could just have him stoned or hung or what have you. Alephb (talk) 12:12, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
 * What about "violently" vs. "by daggar" in 2:32 ?
 * In 2:32, the Hebrew is literally, "killed them with the sword/dagger." In this case, though, the earlier narratives do in fact record that both killings were in fact by stabbing. Looking at it now, I'd be inclined to go literal in this verse. If it was me that chose "violently" before, it was probably under the influence of verse 8, where "sword" seems to be used in a very general way. But the killings in verse 32 are literally "sword" deaths. Alephb (talk) 23:48, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Changed to "stabbed to death"(from "killed violently"). Also "father's house"(literal) instead of "kingdom"("house" is still idiomatick english). JustinCB (talk) 03:27, 13 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Both of those changes seem reasonable to me. Alephb (talk) 12:37, 13 December 2017 (UTC)