Translation talk:2 Samuel

Sources -- Fragments
The text so far was put here by User:Sije, and consists of 1:1-2, a fragment of 3:18, 12:11, and 21:16. I'm moving the sources Sije used over to this talk page: "Consulted American Standard version Consulted King James version Consulted New American Standard version Consulted New International version Consulted World English version Consulted Wycliffe version" Alephb (talk) 09:50, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

That's pleanty of versions. JustinCB (talk) 01:13, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes. As I recently posted on my user page, when translating verses of the Hebrew Bible, I first consult those translations that are available on Wikisource (and hence, are not copyrighted). Sorry for the late reply, --Sije (talk) 19:15, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
 * By the way, I think that Wikisource translations are just for translating the text as is; not for trying to figure out how the text might have been corrupted. --Sije (talk) 20:21, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Hello, Sije. I wish it were always that simple. But where the Hebrew appears unintelligible, I'm not sure it's possible to translate "as is". The good news is that the Hebrew is usually intelligible. Alephb (talk) 22:17, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Sources, 1
I've used the Masoretic Text, and have made no text-critical departures from it. I felt free to borrow some wording from the King James Version (in the public domain), and leaned on Gesenius' Lexicon and S. R. Driver's commentary (1913) edition in the process. Alephb (talk) 11:10, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Chapters with fragments, Chapter 2
I will translate those chapters(3, 12, and 21) from the clementine vulgate. JustinCB (talk) 14:43, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

And I will consult the Wycliffite bible. JustinCB (talk) 14:44, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Hey I saw your note on "and he slept with her." For whatever it's worth, I checked the Septuagint and there was no sign of that phrase there either, nor in the Hebrew. I'm guessing Wycliff/whoever just added that in to sort of smooth things out? I don't know enough about the Wycliffite translation style to have an instinct for that kind of thing.


 * As a side note, is there any particular edition of Wycliff that you're using? I've heard there's at least two out there, probably more. Alephb (talk)


 * I moved "and he slept with her" to a footnote because I didn't see it in any other version(I think it might be from an early, corrupt manuscript or by mistaking a vetus latinae[old vulgate] manuscript with a corrupt reading for an early manuscript of Jerome's vulgate with a truer reading). There are two main revisions, and each manuscript would be a minor revision(but there aren't a whole lot of differences between manuscripts), but I'm primarily consulting the more literal |early version on another site, and less often the late version on Wikisource.  I also did chapter 2 to prevent confusion, as it's sandwiched between two complete chapters.  JustinCB (talk) 17:27, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

I think it's more likely that things were added to the vulgate at some point, rather than the Wycliffe bible. A couple other places the Wycliffe has something the Clementine vulgate doesn't, and I removed "slept with her",(although it might be "he went to her"[both that part and Isboseth's question are literally "went into her"]) and I only used one of that edition's additions(what the Israelites swore to the Gabaonites[they would not kill them], which makes the passage make a lot more sense). JustinCB (talk) 17:39, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Actually, it might be a mistake, putting a footnote in the text like "Ariel, that is Jerusalem" in Isaiah. JustinCB (talk) 18:09, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Sources: chap 4-11, 13-20, 22-24
I've translated these sections from the Masoretic Text, with the aid of any public domain source that seemed helpful. Any departures are footnoted. Alephb (talk) 03:07, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

In particular, in difficult sections I've referred frequently to Henry Preserved Smith's commentary. Alephb (talk) 23:05, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

"of his/her sons/daughters" vs. "his/her son/daughter"
In several places in the vulgate, instead of the normal " filius/filia "(" son of/daughter of "), it has " filii/filiae "(" sons of/daughters of "). I translated the second one as "of the sons/daughters of", but I'm curious why it's used and if it reflects a Hebrew construction. JustinCB (talk) 21:04, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Well, in 2:12, I don't think the filii is a plural, I think its a genitive singular: the children of Ishbosheth the son of Saul, the of puts both Ishbosheth (though you can't see it because it's undeclinable) and son into the genetive. So it's the sons of Ishbosheth (genitive singular), the son (genitive singular) of Saul," I think. Without looking at the Latin, the construction you've got in English suggests that something similar may be going on in 21:7, 21:8, and 3:3. I've got to run off to work, so I can't look deeper at the moment, but I think that's the issue. Alephb (talk) 12:12, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

That's what I was missing! It's a very English mistake to make because English doesn't inflect very much(and making this construction in English with inflections is almost impossible[something like "Isboseth Saul's son's sons"]). JustinCB (talk) 14:21, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

"son of death"
Is this a Hebrew idiom? It is the literal translation of what David says in 12:5, that I translated "should be killed". JustinCB (talk) 16:26, 22 November 2017 (UTC)


 * The Hebrew does read ben mavet, "son of death." It does seem to be an idiom for something like "worthy of death / should be killed." It appears three times in the Bible, and all three times in the book(s) of Samuel. When Abner fails to protect Saul in 1 Samuel 26:16, David says, 'What you have done is not good. By the life of Yahweh, you are ben mavet, because you failed to guard your master, Yahweh's anointed." Earlier, when Saul wants to kill David, he says to his son Jonathan, "Because as long as the son of Jesse is alive on the earth, you and your kingdom will not be established. So send and get him for me, because he is ben-mavet." And then there's the one you found.


 * It reminds me of Deuteronomy 25:2, where judges determine whether a guilty person is ben hakkot, "a son of beatings," and if so, they decide how many hits he deserves to get.


 * More broadly, Hebrew in general uses "ben + X" to associate someone with X in ways that English would not. As we discussed before, a "ben X year" is an "X-year old". A "ben Zion" is someone from Zion, "sons of bereavement" are born in the exile, the morning star is "ben morning," a warrior-hero is a "son of strength," a wicked man is "son of wickedness," "sons of oil" are anointed with oil, etc. So even if we didn't have the two other passages, the other ben-phrases would be enough to give us some idea of what ben mavet could mean. Alephb (talk) 23:10, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

...Although some of the "son of X" phrases have made their way into English through translations being literal(in the chapters I translated, for example, I translated "son of strength"[or "sons of strength", I don't remember] literally because it has made its way into English through, for example, the King James Bible). I think I made the right choice with translating "filius mortui est"(literally "son death's is", or "is a son of death") as "should be killed", though. JustinCB (talk) 02:20, 23 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Both of those seem like fine choices to me. Sometimes, there seems to me (subjective, I know) to be something poetic about the "son of" language, and in cases where it makes sense, I think a literal translation does a good job of preserving the flavor. Alephb (talk) 02:42, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It seems to me good, where possible, to translate a metaphor with a metaphor, to avoid flattening out the text. Translation is never perfect, but if I say, "dumb as an ox," I'd rather not have someone "translate" it away as "of low intelligence." Sometimes I can't translate literally, but I can still preserve some of the Hebrew metaphor into English. Alephb (talk)

"son of Saltus" or "son of the Forest"?
I'm just asking this because the Wycliff translation translates based on the Latin meaning of that word rather than as a name(it has "wild wood", but this is by no means the only place where an adjective is used for a connotation in that translation). Strangely, it also adds "layer of diverse colors"(you should really look at the footnoted Wycliffe readings). JustinCB (talk) 04:30, 23 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I take it you're talking about 21:19, which currently reads, "The third battle was in Gob against the Philistines, in it, Adeodatus son of Saltus[11] the Bethlehemite struck Goliath Gethae, whose spear was like a weaver's beam."


 * In Hebrew, it reads more like, "And there was again a battle at Gob with Philistines. And Elhanan son of Jaare Oregim the Bethlehemite struck Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam." And the Hebrew struck, in situations like this, implies killed.


 * It's a tricky verse, and we might expect it to create problems for translators and such over time for a few reasons. First, in the better-known story, it is king David who kills Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. Second, the word Oregim there in the name of Elhanan's father is the word "weavers" (plural), just as it appears in the phrase "weaver's beam" (in Hebrew, literally, beam of weavers (Oregim). It looks kind of like a copyist accidentally wrote "Oregim" twice, maybe glancing at the wrong line or something and introducing it. We might expect two things: one, we might expect some attempt to resolve the problem of who killed Goliath, and two, we might expect that there was a version of the story in which the word "weavers" doesn't appear in a persons name randomly like that.


 * Compare Chronicles, which contains a different version of this same verse. And there was again a battle with Philistines, and Elhanan son of Jair struck Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. Now the repetition of "Oregim" is gone, the problematic killing of Goliath is neatly turned into Goliath's brother, and the brother has a name, Lahmi. But if you look closer at that name, there something odd. In Samuel, Jair is "the Bethlehemite", Hebrew Beit hal-Lahmi. In Chronicles, the note about Jair's place of origin has disappeared. So in the two versions in Samuel (David, Elhanan), it is a Beit ha-Lahmi who kills the giant, and in Chronicles, the giant is himself Lahmi.


 * It's weird all around. But no Saltus, as far as I can tell. Saltus probably comes from Jaare, which looks like the Hebrew for "forests of," So you could read Elhanan (the version of Elhanan in Samuel) as "Elhanan son of forests of weavers." The Vulgate seems to have gone off in an interesting direction with this. Alephb (talk) 13:42, 23 November 2017 (UTC)


 * PS -- I notice that your vulgate translation of 1 Samuel 21:19 contains no trace of the repetition of "Oregim" found in the Hebrew text, but only has the word where it looks like it belonged. Perhaps this is evidence that Jerome had in front of him a Hebrew text that did not contain that particular scribal error. Alephb (talk) 13:56, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

No, I made a mistake. I missed the word "polymitarius", which Wycliff rendered as "layer of diverse colors", which keeps the latin meaning(it can be "tapestry" or "weaver", both of which are "layers"[the "tapestry" is a layer of cloth and a "weaver" lays cloth]). JustinCB (talk) 14:20, 23 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Oh, that's sad. I thought we might have stumbled across some evidence that Jerome had a Hebrew text that can sometimes correct the Masoretic Text. Alephb (talk) 14:45, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, that's too bad. However, it's possible that Wycliffe had a Vulgate text that said the Bethlehemite, son of the forest was a weaver, which makes sense in the context of the books of Samuel, a humble weaver defeating a proud giant. Also, it makes a lot more sense than the forest being a weaver, or him being the son of the forest tapestry.JustinCB (talk) 01:57, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

"polymitarius" vs. "texentium"
The father of the man who slew Goliath is "saltus polymitarius", which means "forest tapestry-weaver", but Goliath's spear is like a "liciatorium texentium", which means "beam of a weaver". "liciatorium" is specifically the beam of a loom. "texentium" is weaver's, but the kind of weaver it referrs to is a plain weaver(as of clothes), whereas "polymitarius" is a weaver of an ornate tapestry(as a damask). This could mean that the "origem" in the name was accidentally written in the place of a term for a tapestry maker or another job relating to making ornate things. JustinCB (talk) 18:46, 24 November 2017 (UTC)


 * In the Vulgate the father is "saltus polymitarius," a singular expression. In Hebrew, you have an expression in which both words are plural: elhanan ben ya're orgim, literally, if you decide to translate ya're orgim instead of transliterate it, "Elhanan son of forests of weavers." It's a thoroughly bizarre name, because there's no precedent for someone named anything like "forests," let alone "forests of weavers (or insert your preferred synonym for "weavers" here).


 * On the other hand, it's easy to explain where "ya're" ("forests of") would come from. In Hebrew, "forests of" is spelled, and pronounced roughly ya-re. On the other hand, instead of "forests of", Chronicles in the parallel passages has the perfectly unremarkable Hebrew name , pronounced ya-ir. All you have to do is switch a single letter around.


 * Whatever our hypothetical original text had, it needs to explain, ideally, how we got the Chronicles and Samuel versions of Elhanan's father's name. My suggestion is that Chronicles has the original reading, "Elhanan son of Jair," and then Samuel has an erroneous version based on flipping a single letter of "Jair" and copying "oregim" in from the next line, which could easily be done unconsciously, especially because grammatically a word like "Ya're" "forests of" demands some following noun. So that's the scenario I prefer.


 * The scenario you've suggested, if I understand it right, has Elhanan original called something like "Elhanan son of forest(s?) of X [some word for weavers other than orgim]." Then, in the Samuel text, the name gets corrupted by the substitution of oregim for X. And in the Chronicles version, X drops out altogether. I find this a little harder to buy -- why would both versions of the story drop X in two different ways? What would "forests of weavers" mean anyhow? And why would the original reading be the improbable "forests of something" instead of the more normal "Jair"?


 * Nothing is impossible, I suppose, but that's how I think the probabilities stack up. Alephb (talk) 23:11, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

How about the Jerome's Hebrew text was somewhat corrupt, and the original text was "son of Jair, the fancy tapestry maker" or "son of Jair and the fancy tapestry maker", and in Jerome's time it was corrupted to "son of the forest, fancy tapestry maker", which seemed wrong, so it was corrected to "son of the forests of weavers". Another scenereo is that it wasn't talking about his father at all, but using an idiom, "son of the forest", and so we would read, "the wild weaver of beautiful tapestries" or something like that. JustinCB (talk) 00:02, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Wait a second, "polymitarius" is nominative. That means that ELHANAN is the fancy tapestry maker, not Saltus. This means that the Hebrew Jerome worked from read something like "Elhanan the fancy tapestry maker, son of the forest", and your correction would have the text read "Elhanan the fancy tapestry maker, son of Jair." It would be reasonable for Chronicles to leave out his occupation because it's more condensed. JustinCB (talk) 00:22, 25 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I think we're talking past each other slightly, which I suppose is to be expected, because we're working from different languages here. I certainly didn't intend to suggest that the original text read "Elhanan the fancy tapestry maker, son of Jair." My suggestion is that the original Samuel text simply read "Elhanan son of Jair," as it is found today in the Masoretic Text of Chronicles. I'm suggesting that the whole Jaare Oregim / "forests of weavers" bit is a mashup of two simple scribal errors that makes the Hebrew text in Samuel unintelligible, "Elhanan son of forests (plural) of (definitely the Hebrew has "of") weavers (plural)." Then I'm suggesting that Jerome had as his text of Samuel the same text we have today, and did his level best to wring some kind of sense out of it.


 * I think the corruption of Samuel occurred very early, because the Septuagint reads, "Eleanan son of Ariorgim." At least from where I stand, it's not that Chronicles is a more concise Hebrew text, it's that it's the only intelligible Hebrew text of this story we have at all.


 * I might understand better what you're suggesting if you tried something (and I'm willing to help with any vocab or grammar technical questions here). If you could propose what you think the original Hebrew text of the story read, and then propose a theory for how the current texts as found in Samuel and Hebrew got to be the way they are, I would probably understand you better. Alephb (talk) 01:27, 25 November 2017 (UTC)


 * As raw material, here's a start. Samuel reads, vat-tehi od ham-milhama be-gob im pelishtim vay-yak elhanan ben yare orgim bet hal-lahmi et golyat hag-gitti we-ets hanit-o ki-menor orgim.


 * Very literally, And-therewas again the-war in-Gob with-Philistines and-killed Elhanan ben Jaare Oregim Beth the-lehemite [object marker] Goliath the-Gittite and-wood (of) javelin-his (was) like-beam (of) weavers."


 * That is, "And there was again war in Gob with Philistines, and Elhanan ben Jaare Oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite, and the shaft of his javelin was like a weaver's beam."


 * And here's Chronicles: vat-tehi od milhama et pelishtim vay-yak elhanan ben yair et lahmi ahi golyat hag-gitti we-ets hanit-o ki-menor orgim.


 * Literally, And-therewas again war with Philistine and-killed Elhanan ben Jair [object marker] Lahmi brotherof Goliath the-Gittite and-wood (of) javelin-his (was) like-beam (of) weavers.


 * "And there was again war with Philistines, and Elhanan ben Jair killed Lahmi brother of Goliath the Gittite, and the shaft of his javelin was like a weaver's beam." Alephb (talk) 01:36, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

If it had "ben yair" for "ben yare", and "origem" referred to "elhanan" instead of "yare"/"yair", and perhaps "origem" was replaced with something that translates into Latin as "polymitarius", that would be what a corrected text would look like. JustinCB (talk) 02:14, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

And the letters in the father's name would've been transposed, as you before said, and a confused scribe might not have known what the word for "polymitarius" meant(or just had a vague idea that it meant something like "origem"), but saw a word in the nominative that didn't make sense, and so replaced it with the closest thing, "origem". I believe the original text in question read in Hebrew(with Latin for the dropped term), "elhanan ben yair polymitarius bet hal-lahmi". Then a scribe mispelled "yair" giving "elhanan ben yare polymitarius bet hal-lahmi", and this is the text that Jerome translated from. Then a confused scribe saw that "polymitarius" seemed out of place, so he substituted "origem", yeilding "elhanan ben yare origem bet hal-lahmi", which we have now. JustinCB (talk) 02:33, 25 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I think I understand a lot better what you're saying now. And I understand why the "polymitarius" word might have dropped out in your scenario. By the way, your theory about polymitarius being obsolete could just as easily explain why the Chronicler doesn't include it -- in his use of Samuel, the Chronicler is known to find ways not to keep obscure or outdated words.


 * As a side note, Hebrew doesn't have a nominative case, or a case system at all that looks like Latin. In Latin, is you want to say, for example, "sons of an apple" you take filius son and malum apple, and you pluralize apple son to sons, filii, and you place apple in the genitive mali and you get filii mali. The "of" relationship is marked by marking the possessor with the genitive.


 * In Hebrew, the of relationship is marked by marking the possessed with the "construct state." So son is ben, and then sons is banim in the defaul ("absolute") state, and then in the construct state "sons of" is bnei. The word apple, tappuach, doesn't get modified at all, so "sons of an apple" is bnei tappuach.


 * So for forest, "forest" is yaʕar, "forests" is yeʕarim, and "forests of" is yaʕre. So if the text read elhanan ben yaʕir polymitarius, you might read that as "Elhanan son of Jair, a damask-maker" and then a single letter transposed it to yaʕre, you would suddenly find yourself reading Elhanan son of forests of a damask-maker. The transformation of polymitarius to "genitive" (if you will) occurs "automatically" when yaʕre appears in the construct state.


 * By the way, for when I put in footnotes, is there a particular edition of Wycliff you're using, in print or online, that I can refer to? Alephb (talk) 14:34, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

There is no great version online. The version I'm using for the early version is the whole bible in one webpage, and it's ~12 MB, and has only been edited to add tables of contents and to add headers for some books and insert the epistle to laodacians and a short introduction. The later version at wikisource erroniously transcribes diverse places as "y" that should be "gh" or yogh(that letter looks like "3"), but it's edited to be versified. The 1850 printed edition is more correct and approachable, but it's only available in scans online(I worked from those scans to translate the prologue, and the URL on archive.org is listed on the "sources" talk on the discussions on that page). Perhaps the 1850 edition may be the one to cite due to its scholarship and utility(it marks all variant readings and correctly transcribes everything, and it prints the early and late version side by side). JustinCB (talk) 16:43, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

So the 1850 Forshal & Madden edition is the one to cite, even if it isn't the one I'm working from because it's the most useful and the most scholarly and the most correct. JustinCB (talk) 17:06, 25 November 2017 (UTC)


 * All right, that'll work. Just every now and then when I have a question I want to check your work, and was wondering where exactly to do it. That should work. Alephb (talk) 17:16, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Based on this, I believe the original was, litterally "son-of Jair damask-weaver", which got corrupted to "son-of forests-of damask-weaver", which got emended to, in the septuagint's source/masoritic "son-of forests-of weavers", and, in the vulgate's source, "son-of forest damask-weaver", which Jerome interpreted to mean "son of-forest damask-weaver[nominative suffix]". JustinCB (talk) 19:25, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

pueri Isboseth
As we discussed before, since you're (JustinCB) okay with it, I've been going through these Vulgate-based sections to move names and some other details closer to the Hebrew, or footnoting Hebrew-based readings.

A question about pueri Isboseth -- because the word pueri is used, rather than filii which is usually used for a person's sons, is it possible that the Latin word pueri in this context has the sense of "servants" rather than "children," like the French garcon sometimes means "waiter" instead of "boy," and the Hebrew naar sometimes means "servant, assistant" rather than "young man." I'm thinking it might because the Hebrew reads "servants" in 2:12 instead of bnei "sons of." Alephb (talk) 14:59, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

It's probably "servants" in this context. I was probably using "children", which is another translation, because of "parvuli", which is "child" or "little one"(and "parvulii", which is plural). JustinCB (talk) 16:06, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Actually, "pueri" is a different level than the word before translated "servant". The before translated word might be better translated "slave", though. "pueri" is literally "boys", which could be "sons", "servants", or "people of a lower social class". "servae", on the other hand is "servants" or "slaves". "pueri" are "boys"; "servae" are "workers". JustinCB (talk) 19:39, 25 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Okay, so it sounds like puer has a range of meanings similar to Hebrew naar and servus would be similar to eved. But servae would be female slaves, right? Alephb (talk) 20:00, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

I meant "servii". I was contrasting "servus" with "pueri", and put it in the feminine. I was pointing out that a "puer" is a "boy", as opposed to a "servus", which is a "worker". "puerae"(girls) and "servae"(maidservants) are irrelevent. JustinCB (talk) 22:16, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

In chapter 1, the bow is written in the book of...
According to this, the book is "jasher". According to the vulgate, it is "justorum"(of just/righteous). What do you think? JustinCB (talk) 13:32, 13 December 2017 (UTC)


 * "Jasher", (Hebrew, yashar) is Hebrew for "upright/decent/just." The Vulgate has a plural, as if the Hebrew read yesharim. Alephb (talk) 17:45, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

1:9
The vulgate has saul saying, "anguish holds me, but my whole life/soul is still in me"(if that helps) JustinCB (talk) 13:46, 13 December 2017 (UTC)


 * So basically the Vulgate is translating shabats as "anguish." Seems like a reasonable guess. Alephb (talk) 17:44, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

shekels
Did you mean for it to be a link? It's not particularly useful that way because it just shows a redlink in the middle of the text. JustinCB (talk) 20:25, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I did not. I meant for it to be in regular brackets. I'll fix it. Alephb (talk) 23:47, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
 * OK. I would've fixed it myself, but I didn't know if you were trying to link biblical units of measurement to pages about them.  JustinCB (talk) 14:12, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

21:19
This is the text now that I've made some changes(see the text page for the foot notes): "The third battle was in Gob against the Philistines, in it, Elhanan the Bethlehemite, son of Jair, a weaver of ornate tapestries, struck [the brother of] Goliath the Gittite, whose spear was like a weaver's beam." I put "weaver of ornate tapestries" in its original place in the sentence order(because I think it was only in the nominative because it wouldn't make sense for "the forest" to be a weaver). You can change "the third battle" to whatever makes sense with the Hebrew(the Vulgate was counting battles). JustinCB (talk) 14:12, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Will you go in the order of books?
Will you continue to go in the order of books after 2 Chronicles, or will you start translating poetry here and there(as you before said, that next after 2 Chronicles, you will do books with a lot of poetry)? JustinCB (talk) 01:30, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm really not sure. I hadn't given it any thought. I might start with books that are partially translated and closer to done, just to tidy up the state of things a bit. But I'm not really stuck to any particular order. If you've got a suggestion, I'd be interested to hear it.Alephb (talk) 01:38, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

I was just thinking to go in the order of books in the bible. By the way, I've been tidying, but by chapters, not books. I've done 2 verses in the song of songs, half a chapter in Ezra, 3 chapters bar 1 verse & a part here, and 2 chapters bar 2 verses in Isaiah(actually, am doing 1 of those chapters[one is done, the tother in progress]). JustinCB (talk) 02:55, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

"polymitarius" in other places
I was thinking a little more, and I looked up "polymitarius" in a concordance. Outside of this use in 2 Samuel, it only appears 4 times, all in Exodus. In Exodus 35:35, God gives people wisdom in their hearts to be several things, including "polymitarii(designers), and plumarii(embroiderers)". In Exodus 36:35 and 39:3, the "thoughtful work" with "embroidery in cyan, magenta, knits, and oddfeel shesh" is described as "opere polymitario", that is "work of [a] polymitarius". The other one is in Exodus 38:23, when a polymitarius and a plumarius work with "embroidery in cyan, magenta, knits, and shesh". Probably the rest of the work with "embroidery in cyan, magenta, knits, and [oddfeel] shesh" was done by plumarii.

I think that a polymitarius is a head/supervisor of plumarii, but I don't know how that would look in Hebrew or how it should be rendered in English. JustinCB (talk) 04:00, 20 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Let's start with the last one: Exodus 38:23. In that verse, I think we don't have a polymitarius and another person who is a plumarius. If I'm reading it right, in both Hebrew and in Latin, Hooliab / Aholiab is a man with three talents: he's a an engraver or artifex lignorum, he's a polymitariius, and he's a plumarius. If I'm reading that right, then I would lean away from a polymitarius being a plumarius-supervisor, given that one man does both and that two mentions of the "work of a polymitarius" make no mention of plumarii.


 * In both Exodus 38:23 and 35:35, we find mentions of both polymitari(us/i) and plumari(us/i). In both cases, the Hebrew has, respectively, choshev and roqem. A roqem would seem to be some kind of cloth-manufacturer, as would a choshev, but as near as I can tell the contexts in which both appear don't seem to give us enough information to say what the difference between the two is. One hint might be etymology: choshev would also be the word for "thinker" or "designer" or "planner", so perhaps a choshev would do something more design-oriented than a roqem. On the other hand, the related term cheshev describes a priestly waistband, so perhaps it's just a cloth-related term that is spelled like the word for "think." I couldn't say for sure.


 * Unless there is some other good evidence I'm missing (I haven't looked at related languages or the Septuagint on this question, for example), my tentative instinct would be to say the Vulgate's renderings are probably as good a guess as any as to what the words mean. Alephb (talk) 18:25, 20 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Is "choshev" a rare word in Hebrew? If so, perhaps "Jaare-Origem" was originally "Jair choshev".  If so, perhaps the "polymitarius work"/"thoughtful work" was in the text that Jerome had, "choshev work", which would be "work of a designer of ornate tapestries/cloth" or "thoughtful work", and this Jair was a "designer of ornate cloth" rather then a "weaver of ornate tapestries".  JustinCB (talk) 19:34, 20 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Neither one is rare, and both are noun versions of a common noun. So where "arag" means "weave," "oreg" is "weaver." And where "chashav" is "plan", "choshev" is "planner." The substiution of o-e for a-a inside the word is rather like adding er or ing in English or andus in Latin. So even if either word oreg or choshev disappeared for centuries, the first time someone used or read either one, they would instantly thing "weaver" or "planner/designer" because the words are derived by simple rules from the associated verbs.


 * And certainly choshev doesn't become obsolete, because it continues to be used in the same sense in non-biblical Qumran manuscripts. There's a couple other obstacles for considering that reconstruction, too. If we start with "Jair choshev" and substitute "oreg" for "choshev", we get "Jair Oreg." Then somehow we have to have Jair changes from the singular name "Jair" to the plural construct word "Jaare." And then somehow we have to change the singular "Oreg" to the plural "Oregim." Alephb (talk) 00:47, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Maybe there was a weaving-related sense related to the closeness of the word to "planner" and "ornate priest sash", and the word(as it appeared translated "polymitarius") was slightly different(in meaning and spelling/pronounciation), and that one, being obselete, was replaced in Exodus with what we have now, and here with "origem"(as the reviser, seeing "Jaare" emended it to "origem", rather than "oreg" because it wouldn't make sense grammatically to have "forests of weaver"[as a forest of anything is made up of many of what it's a forest of, much more with forests{you wouldn't have "forests of tree", but "forests of trees"}]). JustinCB (talk) 02:46, 21 December 2017 (UTC)