Timeline for Looking for a word with a distinct meaning driven by mesorah
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 22, 2015 at 3:50 | comment | added | mevaqesh | By the way נא does not usually mean please; that is a drash. it means now. I am not sure it ever conclusively means please on a pshat level. see this article on the topic: parsha.blogspot.com/2005/06/… Accordingly, this answer could not be more wrong. | |
| Sep 22, 2015 at 19:06 | comment | added | rosends | there is a traditional understanding (as evidenced by Onkelos) of "kushta" which rashi quotes as an option. This is at odds with the standard understanding. Someone without access to religious meforshim would miss it. | |
| Sep 22, 2015 at 19:04 | comment | added | DanF | @Danno If it's the verse I'm thinking of, (don't have chumash open, now), you mean the one when the brothers confess to their selling Yosef, right? If that's the verse, I think the meaning "but" may make sense there. Reason - look at the context of what they say afterwords, "..because we didn't listen to our brother's pleas." I.e., hidden msg. - We thought we'd have no problem buying food, BUT, this is the reason why we have encountered all these problems. It's a bit of a stretch, but, it may work, here. Point is, there's no "religious" context within this verse. | |
| Sep 22, 2015 at 18:13 | comment | added | rosends | I am now working on "aval" as used in Bereishit 42:21 and explained by Onkelos as "in truth." | |
| Sep 22, 2015 at 17:48 | comment | added | DanF | @Danno I wouldn't know the definitive answer to your last question. One of the reasons I spec. used Rashba"m (I saw Rash"i, as well) is that the last 2 words הכתוב כאן seem to indicate that this what the verse means hear. I'm inferring that due to the context of everything else surrounding this verse as well as the entire paragraph talking about Karban Pesach, that all the commentaries may have been forced to find some other explanation for the word "na". Though, I agree, that the standard translation, "please" would work, here, it seems syntactically, though, not semantically, misplaced. | |
| Sep 22, 2015 at 17:10 | comment | added | rosends | that is an interesting example -- Rashi says that the word "na" here is simply the Arabic for "uncooked". Apparently the Abarbenel says it means "now" while the Ibn Ezra says "the way it is now" (which would mean uncooked). No translator I can find translates it any way other than some form of raw. Were they all acceding to a rabbinic understanding or was there an obvious linguistic imperative? | |
| Sep 22, 2015 at 16:51 | history | answered | DanF | CC BY-SA 3.0 |