torah translation

[cellio]

I chanted torah this morning and translated from the scroll. (My next assignment is Vayakheil-Pekudei, which I'm guessing will be obscure-enough text that I won't be able to do that.) Here's my translation of the fifth aliya of parshat Bo (literal first, then notes, then a looser one that flows better):

Fairly literal:

Moshe called to the elders of Israel and he said to them: go get yourselves a lamb; for your family slaughter the Pesach offering. Take bunches of hyssop and dip [immerse] in the blood that is in the basin; smear on the lintel and on the two doorposts [1] from the blood that is in the basin. And you, do not go out, a man from the entry of his house, until morning. And God will cross over to smite Egypt, and he will see the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, and God will pass over the entry and he will not give the destroyer [2] to go to your houses to smite. And you will observe this thing as a statute [3] for yourself and for your sons forever. And it will be [4] that you will go to the land that God will give you as he said, and you will observe this service [ritual]. And it will be that your sons will say to you: what is this service to you? And you will say to them: this is the Pesach offering to God, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt; in his smiting of Egypt our houses he kept safe. And the people bowed down in homage. And the children of Israel went and they did; all that God commanded Moshe and Aharon so they did. [5]

I took other translations' word for some of the passing vocabulary, like hyssop and lintel.

[1] "Smear on the lintel and on the two doorposts": that's how it's phrased, both times -- not "of your house", and both singular and definite.

[2] "Give the destroyer to...": I learned after the service this morning that this is an idiom for "let". I guess in the sense of "give leave to".

[3] The word is "chok"; I can never remember whether that's translated "statute" and "mishpat" is ordinance, or if it's the other way around. (To me the English words are synonyms, though the Hebrew ones are not.)

[4] "And it will be": This does not contribute to the grammar or comprehension of the sentence either time it appears, so I assume it's a literary device with an idiomatic translation (that I don't know). I thought "vay'hi" was usually used for that, but this is "v'hayah" (both times).

[5] The grammar on this last verse is a little confusing; it seems to involve two phrases squished together without quite enough syntactic glue. It could be as I translated it, or it could be two thoughts -- the elders (remember them?) went and did [something, omitted], and (then) the children of Israel did as God commanded. The trope suggests the way I translated it, but the latter seems a little closer to the word meanings absent the trope. The ambiguity would totally not be there if the final two words of the verse ("kein asu") weren't there.

Ok, here's my attempt at going beyond literal to something that has the right sense and flows better:

Moshe called to the elders of Israel and he said to them: each of you go get yourself a lamb and slaughter it for your family's Pesach offering. Take bunches of hyssop, dip them in the blood that is in the basin [from the slaughter], and smear it on the lintel and the two doorposts of your house. Under no circumstances is anyone to go out from his house until morning. God will cross into the land to smite Egypt, but he will see the blood on the lintel and doorposts and God will pass over your doors, not allowing the destroyer to go into your houses to smite.

You will observe this as a statute for yourself and your children forever. When you cross into the land that God will give you, you will observe this ritual. If your children say to you "what does this ritual mean to you?", you will answer them: "This is the Pesach offering to God, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt; when he smote Egypt he kept our houses safe." The elders bowed down in homage and they went and did this. And the children of Israel did all that God commanded Moshe and Aharon.

Comments

[geekosaur]

It's worth remembering that the "future" tense is really an imperfect tense, and as such can denote "might be" as well as "will be". Sometimes an additional word will indicate this explicitly (e.g. "hisham'ru lachem pen yifteh..."), other times you just have to figure it out from context.

ISTR there's also a midrashic explanation of "v'hayah" signaling an accusation or similar.