A Small Matter of Paragraphing: Joseph Smith Translation Jeremiah 37:16

The paragraphing of the Geneva Bible, which is the first direct English translation of the Prophets from the Hebrew, and of the King James Version of Jeremiah 37 differs from that found in the Hebrew Masoretic Text--and in the Joseph Smith Translation. In the KJV verse 16 begins a new paragraph; in Hebrew manuscripts verse 16 ends one paragraph and verse 17 begins another:

15 Wherefore the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe: for they had made that the prison.

16 ¶When Jeremiah was entered into the dungeon, and into the cabins, and Jeremiah had remained there many days;

17 Then Zedekiah the king sent, and took him out: and the king asked him secretly in his house, and said, Is there any word from the Lord? And Jeremiah said, There is: for, said he, thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.

The KJV closely follows the Geneva Bible (The Geneva Bible: a Facsimile of the 1560 Edition, 2007):

Wherefore the princes were angry with Ieremiah, and smote him, and laid him in prison in the house of Iehonathan the scribe: for they had made that the prison (37:15).

When Ieremiah was entred into the dungeon, and into the prisons, and had remained there a long time (37:16),

Then Zedekiah the King sent, and toke him out, and the King asked him secretly in his house, and said, Is there any worde from the Lord? And Ieremiah sayd, Yea: for, sayd he, thou shalt be deliuered into the hand of the King of Babel (37:17).


The layout of Hebrew Bibles in manuscript, excluding the Psalms, apportions text into open and closed paragraphs (or parashot). The letter peh, shorthand for petuxa (open), marks the beginning of a clear-cut, new paragraph. Peh marks a new act in the narrative or a new, distinct idea and signals the kind of paragraph familiar to readers of modern prose. Such a stand-alone paragraph can hardly begin on the same manuscript line as the previous paragraph; what space remains in the line must therefore be left blank. The blank space is what bears the name petuxa, being the "open section" of manuscript line. The new, or open, paragraph accordingly begins on its own, fresh line.

The letter samekh marks a closed paragraph (setuma). A closed paragraph but momentarily pauses the flow of speech, idea, or narrative, and therefore continues to fill the very same line of manuscript on which the prior paragraph ends. No visible break is contemplated, however small or great the seeming pause in action or idea--one letter follows another right to the end of the closely indited manuscript line. There is no such mode of paragraphing in English prose (see Page H. Kelley, Daniel S. Mynatt, and Timothy G. Crawford, The Masorah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: Introduction and Annotated Glossary [Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1998], 155, 167).

The Hebrew system of open and closed paragraphs thus contemplates two distinct kinds of parashot--semicolon and full stop, as it were; but what must be remembered, if we are to understand the terms, is that it is the manuscript line itself which is, in the first instance, open or closed.

Again:

"Peh 'Open.' 'Abbreviation for petuxa' (cf. setuma). This refers to the short paragraphs ('pareshyot') into which the entire Bible (except Psalms) was divided. Such paragraphs could be either 'open' ('ptuxa') or 'closed' ('stuma'). An open paragraph (indicated by peh placed between two verses) had to commence at the beginning of a new line, with the preceding line left partly or wholly blank. These rules applied to handwritten texts but are no longer valid for printed Bibles, since their line and paragraph divisions are of necessity different from those of ancient manuscripts" (ibid., 155).

In manuscripts--though not necessarily in printed Hebrew Bibles--an "open section" of blank line follows Jeremiah 37:16; verse 17 begins at the head of a new line.

The Bomberg Bible, the print edition of the Hebrew Bible used in preparing the KJV, still preserved the manuscript notations for open and closed paragraphs--so why did the KJV translators arrange and translate Jeremiah 37:16-17 as they did? The simple answer is: Because they simply followed the Geneva Bible translators. But why did Anthony Gilby, a gifted Hebraist, and his Geneva group so translate? (For Gilby and the Geneva translators see Lloyd E. Berry, "Preface," The Geneva Bible: a Facsimile of the 1560 Edition.)


Taking the Hebrew particle ki as a marker of temporal conjunction, the equivalent of English when--a dictionary definition--the Geneva translators render the Hebrew into English as a complex sentence opening with a subordinate temporal clause (When Jeremiah was entered into the dungeon, etc.), followed by a temporal main clause (Then Zedekiah the king sent, and took him out:), which, in its turn, is followed in this archaic syntax by what ought, by all rights, to be a new sentence or two (and the king asked him secretly in his house, and said, Is there any word from the Lord?). The tight clausal balance of English When. . .Then focuses our attention, with the insistence of argument, on the translators' own layout of the text, the new mise-en-page, with its altered view of the temporal relation between these two verses.

Because the Geneva scholars understood ki as marking a temporal conjunction (when), translation of these verses required adjustments in the paragraphing; they accordingly moved the sign posts that marked the beginning of a new paragraph from verse 18 back to verse 16. But all such little words as ki make up the linguistic stumbling blocks of centuries to the awkward feet of scholars; for it is often the case that native speakers understand such nuanced linguistic markers differently than do the learned.

I should like to compare the readings of these Englishmen to what may be found in other Genevan translations of Jeremiah, made directly from Hebrew, into Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish. I'd like to know which learned Hebraist first tripped over little ki. The error, it is clear, was not of ancient date: Jerome translated ki with the logical conjunction itaque (thus, and so it was), a translation most Hebraists would have gladly followed. (See David Daniell, "The Translation of the Geneva Bible: The Shocking Truth.") The best known of the French Genevan bibles, the Olivetan Bible, translated directly from the Hebrew by Pierre Robert Olivetan (Calvin's kinsman) in 1558, separates verses 15 and 16, which end and begin on the same line of print, by leaving a significant empty space between the two. The division recalls the paragraph division in the KJV at verse 16. But the new verse begins: Et ainsi Jeremiah (And so Jeremiah); verse 17 begins: Mais le Roy Zedekiah (Then King Zedekiah). The opposition is thus one of: Et ainsi. . . Mais, And so. . . Then, which clearly differs from the "when-then" of the English bibles.

The verse in Hebrew reads: ki va yiremiyahu el-bet habor ve'el-haxanuyot vayeshev-sham yiremiyahu yomim rabim, which, if we parse word for word, says: when (or, as logical conjunction, so it was, or indeed) came in Jeremiah to the house of the pit and the xanuyot [whatever those rooms might be] and he sat, or stayed there days a-plenty). Verse 17 follows: Veyishlax ha-melekh, etc: And he sent, the king, i.e., And the king sent.

Following the Greek Septuagint, which has kai elthein (and he went in), some students have postulated that the Hebrew is corrupt. They accordingly emend ki va to veva (and he entered). Yet, says Professor McKane: "It should not be too readily assumed that Sept. kai elthen (v. 16) is evidence of a Vorlage (v-b-') different from MT (ki va), though this may be correct (so Giesebrecht, Cornill, Volz, Rudolph). Kai elthen, however, may be no more than a free rendering of the awkward ki va in order to secure a smoother translation" (William McKane, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Jeremiah [Edinburgh, 1996], vol. 2: 929). A smoother translation? Here is belated but good advice for the old English translators: Loosen up; go with a free rendering here and there; secure the smoother idiom, let the awkward alone. Alas! the advice comes just a nod after the 17th century scholars sent the manuscript off to the printers. Another student (S. R. Driver) "supposes that ki is a corruption of koh, 'So Jeremiah came'"; another, Ehrlich, "emends to keva, 'When Jeremiah came.'" Comes along just one little Hebrew word, and we're all completely bowled over.

The wording in both the Greek Septuagint and the Masoretic Hebrew show the verse as marking the end of an act: "And (or So it was that) Jeremiah went into the pit, and there he sat"--end of idea--end of paragraph. And that's how modern translators render the matter today. And that's also what Coverdale's Bible, the first English translation of Jeremiah, though dependent on Jerome not on the Hebrew, renders: "Thus was Ieremy put in to the dongeon and preson, and so [itaque] laye there a longe tyme" (see The Bible Corner Web pages). From Coverdale to the latter-day translators certainly marks "a longe tyme."

Let's consider both Anchor Bible editions of Jeremiah.

John Bright (page 225): Verse 16: "Jeremiah was, indeed, put in one of the vaults in the cistern house and left there for some time."

Verse 17 [New Paragraph] But then King Zedekiah sent and had him brought to him," etc.

(Page 225 note): Heb. "Indeed [or "when"] Jeremiah went into. . ." (ki va). LXX  (wayyavo'), "and Jeremiah went into. . .," may be preferable.

(Page 230 note): and left there. Literally "and he stayed there," Hebrew awkwardly repeats 'Jeremiah' as the subject, which we omit with LXX for smoothness' sake."
The Anchor Bible  Jeremiah  John Bright (Garden City, New York, 1965, 2nd ed, 1980).

Jack R. Lundbom (Pages 3-4): Verse 16: "Indeed Jeremiah went to the Pit House, yes, to the cells! And Jeremiah dwelt there many days."

17 "Then King Zedekiah sent and brought him"

(Page 60): "The initial ki is best read as an asseverative, i.e., 'Indeed.' Some commentators get a comparable reading from the LXX's 'And Jeremiah came' (kai elthen Ieremias). The AV and RSV render as 'When,' beginning an awkward dependent clause. This is remedied in the NRSV, although for some reason the final 'Jeremiah' in the verse continues to be untranslated. The Hebrew reads: 'And Jeremiah dwelt there many days.'" Further: "...The LXX omits 'Jeremiah,' which could be more haplography (homoeoarcton y. . .y)." Jack R. Lundbom Jeremiah 37-52 (The Anchor Bible; NY, 2004).

It's surprising that Joseph Smith should follow the old manuscript Hebrew mise-en-page, rather than the KJV. The Prophet had not yet studied Hebrew, and the KJV lay open before him as he worked. But what's the surprise? Joseph Smith is a Prophet--like Jeremiah. And like Jeremiah, Joseph was often detained, tried, and imprisoned (he calls Liberty Jail a "dungeon") on charges of blasphemy and treason. Yet despite the constant persecution, Brother Joseph was given sight and power to reveal the fullness of the scriptures, including changes both substantial and seemingly insubstantial to the Book of Jeremiah. The whole thing is marvelous; thus we shouldn't be surprised when the Prophet, going beyond paragraphing, changes the Geneva Bible (and the KJV) yet a bit more by dropping the verse's second, and thus superfluous, Jeremiah. Professor McKane, after all, reads: "Jeremiah was taken to dungeons under the house and there he was held for a long period" (922). That lopping makes for smoother translation into English; it would have made for a better text in the original Hebrew as well (the Septuagint, after all, drops a Jeremiah or two in verses 16 and 17).

Here's how verses 16-17 read in Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton's translation (The English Translation of the Greek Septuagint Bible as found on http://ecmarsh.com/):

LXX (Greek Septuagint) Chapter 44:15
And the princes were very angry with Jeremias, and smote him, and sent him into the house of Jonathan the scribe: for they had made this a prison.

(A new paragraph follows in Sir Lancelot's translation of the LXX! something which we should not find in the original Greek):

16 So Jeremias came into the dungeon, and into the cells, and he remained there many days. 17 Then Sedekias sent, and called him; and the king asked him secretly, saying, Is there a word from the Lord? and he said, There is: thou shalt be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon.

Now for the Prophet Joseph Smith, another type and witness of Christ, for whom the following verse from his New Translation prefigures both the tortured months in the dungeon of Liberty, Missouri and the bloodstained moments of witness in Carthage Jail, Illinois:

And Jeremiah was entered into the dungeon, and into the cabins, and he remained there many days.

End of Paragraph.

p



Notes:
Though I claim no priority in pointing out how the Joseph Smith Translation of Jeremiah 37:16 matches the ancient mise-en-page of the text, and thus avoids the linguistic trap into which the Geneva translators fell, I have not found any published studies of JST Jeremiah 37:16. Still, there are many Latter-day Saint students of the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint. . .p

Joseph Smith Translation Psalm 125 and the Syriac Old Testament

An exceedingly simple but instructive instance of prophetic inspiration comes to light in the Joseph Smith Translation of Psalm 125:1, as comparison to the Authorised Version shows:

They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever (KJV).

They that trust in the Lord in mount Zion, cannot be removed, but abide for ever (JST).

In the details lies the prophetic instance: thus we have "in mount Zion" rather than "as mount Zion," a single shift in preposition from k to b. 

Can we find any manuscript support for the reading? In my copy of Biblia Hebraica (Stuttgartensia), a famous Hebrew Bible for students, I see the following note attached to the lemma kehar-tsiyyon (as mount Zion): "Ps 125,1 (a) mlt Mss S bhr." The note tells us that many manuscripts of the Syriac Old Testament show preposition b (in) + the place name har-tsiyyon (mount Zion).

Joseph Smith Translation Psalm 104:1--Power and Majesty

Bless the Lord, O my soul.
O Lord my God, thou art very great;
thou art clothed with honour and majesty.
Who covereth thyself with light as a garment:
who stretcheth out the heavens like a curtain.

It would be difficult to surpass the beauty of these lines in any new translation of the Old Testament; the Authorized Version of the Holy Bible remains unsurpassed, and as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I am grateful for its official status as the true "Mormon Bible."

While the Prophet Joseph's New Translation of the Holy Bible does not replace the Authorized Version, it can clear up tangled patches. Often the Prophet deftly rephrases, with fewer words, and so improves the literary quality. The style of the New Translation is that of William Bradford: American plain style. One can quibble, for the New Translation in its quest for clarity, like any other modern version, in places mars the timeless beauty, however ambiguous, of the Authorized Version. Brother Joseph, Yankee Prophet, eschews tangling ambiguity.

The phrase "thou art clothed with honour and majesty" is certainly not injured, and is likely improved, by the Prophet's rendering "thou art clothed with power and majesty." And say what one will about Brother Joseph, what pious reader of Scripture can resist ascribing more power to God? Somehow honour graces not enough for the inspired translator: kings may have honor; God stands clothed in power.

Think of the old hymn, "Glory to God on High": "To him ascribed be/Honor and majesty/Thru all eternity:/Worthy the Lamb!" Change but a word, and "praise ye his name" shines all the brighter: "To him ascribed be/Power and majesty" (James Allen, 1734-1804).

But does power for honour reflect the Hebrew? Brother Joseph, in 1832-33, had not yet purchased his Hebrew Bible and Lexicon or engaged his Hebrew teacher. The original Hebrew phrase reads as a lovely and intensifying alliteration, hod ve hadar. According to the Koehler-Baumgartner lexicon, the word hod approximates the English words weight, power, glory, and the like, with power taking second place in the list. As with the Hebrew word kavod, usually rendered as the glory of God, the principal idea expressed by hod may be that of weight, of a center of gravity or gravitas. Hadar is said to represent "the soul in its highest manifestation of power," although the word literally refers to ornament, attire, splendor: the clothing of God in majesty. Hod ve hadar, with the accent falling on the second part of the phrase in good Semitic fashion, thus bespeaks "power and highest power."

Although not so changed elsewhere in the Prophet's New Translation, power would also better render hod in many other places. Thus God's thundering is to be recognized in the hod of his qol, in the reverberating "power of his voice." In this place (AV Isaiah 30:30) "his glorious voice" makes no sense at all.

"And it pleased the Lord": The Joseph Smith Translation, the Asherah, and the Kings of Judah

The Prophet Joseph Smith's New Translation of the Holy Bible shows us just how Latter-day Saints--as modern Israel--are to understand that sacred record.

Consider the notions forwarded by some over-zealous students about the religious practices of Ancient Israel, and especially those which concern the worship of the Asherah, or tree goddess, by several kings of Israel and Judah. According to the Holy Bible, it was the wicked kings who worshipped such goddesses and their symbols; the righteous kings destroyed them. Yet some contest the narrative and seek to turn the biblical condemnation of idolatry on its head: good becomes evil; evil, good. It's like making the witch in C.S. Lewis's classic, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the good guy. Proud Jadis, in The Magician's Nephew, now becomes the nurturing mother of Israel--quite a change from Mother of Abominations! What would Nephi say? Or C.S. Lewis?

Given the subtleties of scholarship, how grateful we ought to be for any light given us on the matter by the Prophet Joseph Smith. And there is light!


But first a word on how the Joseph Smith Translation lights that candle of Gospel understanding.

While we don't know everything about how the New Translation of the Holy Bible was effected, we are to see the Prophet and his scribes seated at a table and reading aloud, by turns, the entire Bible, book by book (or nearly so). As they read the Scriptures aloud, pure intelligence would flow.

And what is the New Translation of the Bible? It is not only the inspired additions to and corrections of the Bible which make up the New Translation; we also find the oft-repeated inspired affirmation that the remainder of the Authorised Version, itself translated from the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Received Text, as it stands, is Scripture. That Masoretic Text, a gift from the Jews, is the well-spring of all modern Bibles. In the original manuscripts of the New Translation, the Prophet records not only textual expansions and corrections, he also notes the correctness of much of the biblical text as received.

Even so, there remains room-and-to-spare for adjustments and expansion, including the expectation of new Books of John the Baptist and Enoch, and the full version of events on the Mount of Transfiguration, all of which the Doctrine and Covenants promises. And belief in, and confirmation of, the Bible, "as far as it is translated correctly," still gave the Prophet plenty of scope for additional translating, or elucidation through re-wording, as reflected in his Nauvoo letters and sermons and in the Book of Abraham. The Prophet even came to acknowledge the superiority of Luther's translations, as he also pressed on in his study of both Hebrew and Greek. And he prized his Hutter Polyglot. On the other hand, would-be translators and interpreters are not free to move the pieces around in any manner they may choose: the Prophet, in and through the New Translation, has set some bounds and limits to speculation. All of which, however, does not imply full understanding on anyone's part. How utterly changed our view of the world of the Bible or the Book of Mormon would be, could we but view the events in vision! Even so, the doctrinal and narrative framework set out by the Prophet Joseph in his vision--in his New Translation and in the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham--would yet hold.

Taken together, it is the both the changes in and approval of the Authorised English Version of both the Masoretic Text and the Received Text that alike constitute the miracle of the Prophet's New Translation. Recall how after lamenting the loss of plain and precious doctrines from the future Bible in the days of the gentiles, Nephi rounds off his prophecy about that Book with resounding praise for the Masoretic Text: "They shall have a Bible; and it shall proceed forth from the Jews, mine ancient covenant people. And what thank they the Jews for the Bible which they receive [note it well] from them?" (2 Nephi 29:4). While the Greek Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, a few of the biblical scrolls from the Dead Sea, and the Book of Mormon do indeed, here and there, show added text or variant readings that surely sometimes reflect a better text; it is the Masoretic Text that yet stands as the most complete and correct biblical record of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. I thank the Jews for this. While Latter-day Saints invite any correction to, or even inspired expansion of, Masoretic phraseology, the word of the Lord stands true: it is the Bible "which they receive from [the Jews]," in compass with the plain and precious insights of the Isaiah portions of the Book of Mormon and the Prophet's New Translation, that gets the present stamp of approval as God's word.


With that in mind, let us turn to 1 Kings 15:11-12 and begin with an inspired change or two (noted in italics):

And Asa did right in the eyes of the Lord, as he commanded David his father. And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his father had made, and it pleased the Lord.

We would do well to study with care what "pleased the Lord" then, and to recognize also that what pleased Him then yet pleases Him now, for the Lord, without ever changing, "delights" in purity of heart and purity of worship, and in our zeal to sustain both.

And now, to that which the Prophet, by the same spirit of revelation, left without prophetic change, [although some bracketed explanations might prove helpful]:

1 Kings 15:13

And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being queen [and "high priestess"], because she had made an idol in a grove [Heb. the Asherah tree or post]; and Asa destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron.

And--say we in accordance with the divine word--it pleased the Lord.

As did Asa, so Joash, Hezekiah, and Josiah, the more righteous of the kings of Judah. Each cleansed and repaired the holy Temple; each destroyed the idols placed in the House of the Lord by apostate fathers and apostate mothers; each destroyed that Isabel, Mother of Abominations and Mystery of Iniquity, planted by apostates in the Temple of God, as if it was God: "Who opposeth and exalteth [her]self above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that [s]he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing [her]self that [s]he is God" (2 Thessalonians 2:4).

We turn next to Chronicles. 2 Chronicles 34:16, in the New Translation, shows an inspired change in idiom only, though the change reflects Ancient Near Eastern conceptions about the king and his "word" as an all but concrete sacred object to be held inviolate, that is, not to be tampered with but fulfilled to the letter. The verse further evidences, by what remains unchanged, that the Prophet authoritatively confirms the biblical account about Josiah's cleansing of the Temple, discovery of the sacred Book of the Law, and destruction of the Asherah: again, that sacrilegious tree or post placed in God's sanctuary as symbol of the Mother of Abominations--the Great and Abominable Church of the devil, as Nephi would say.

King Josiah has commissioned three officials to preside over the repairs of the House:

Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land, and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah, the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder, to repair the house of the LORD his God (KJV 2 Chronicles 34:8).

During the repairs, Hilkiah, the priest, discovers "a book of the law of the Lord, given by Moses" and commits it to Shaphan:

And Shaphan carried the book to the king, and brought the word of the king back again, saying, All that was committed to thy servants, they do (JST 2 Chronicles 34:16).

And--we repeat the inspired affirmation--it pleased the Lord. The wording in the New Translation resounds with cultural depth and gives an understanding of royal commissions, the royal word of command. We see the difference in cultural nuance, when we compare the New Translation with the Authorized Version:

And Shaphan carried the book to the king, and brought the king word back again, saying, All that was committed to thy servants, they do it (KJV 2 Chronicles 34:16).

The Prophet Joseph brought the word of the Scriptures, the word of righteous kings and prophets and judges, even the word of the Lord, back again--and we also sing of how he "brought the Priesthood back again."

And in light of the New Translation--or, for that matter, any translation of the holy writ--I would question the wisdom of following the lead of modern, agenda-striped students on the theme of the Asherah.

For example, consider the implications of associating the symbolism of Asherah and her tree, as some students eagerly do (though intending no harm), with Nephi's vision of the Tree of Life as symbolic of God's eternal love manifest in blessed Mary and her Child.

That the motif of lady-and-tree belongs to the Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean Kulturkreis has never been in dispute. And given the biological and metaphorical likenesses between woman and tree--the slender willow, the delicately flowering cherry, the perfumed orange--the whole matter must be sufficiently rooted in the human psyche to blossom into correspondences everywhere. A look at the work of Mircea Eliade or Stith Thompson would set things straight (Motif-index of folk-literature).

The idea that the language of Nephi, a lad steeped in the story of Eve and Eden, refers back to apostate Asherah rather than being a reflection of his own cultivated awareness of deeply rooted literary themes, as in the Proverbs and the Song of Songs, is both counter-intuitive and the stuff on which Robert Graves's "white goddess" is made.

Now to the Holy Bible.

To misread the Bible on the worship of the Asherah or of the Queen of Heaven (in Jeremiah 44) is both to misconceive and to misconstrue the Book's very storyline and plot. Whether we choose to accept Scripture, the Bible has its own assumptions about itself. Among these is that Deuteronomy 16:21 (KJV and JST), though penned long before the monarchy came into being, defines just what an Asherah then was and just what an Asherah will be throughout Israelite history--and the plot never varies: "Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of trees [Heb. an Asherah] near unto the altar [Temple] of the Lord thy God, which thou shalt make thee." King Josiah, in a scene foreshadowing King Messiah's cleansing of the Temple--the role of all righteous kings--"brought out the grove [Asherah] from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people [the former adherents of apostate worship]" (2 Kings 23:6, KJV and JST).

One can argue against the Bible's self-assumptions, including the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy, but to do so is to engage in higher criticism, or to follow faddish agenda and archaeological sensationalism, or to rewrite its hard drive (take your pick).

Some will doubtless say we exaggerate concerns; they will say that by espousing sensationalist scholarship, they do not contemplate a merger, only a dalliance. But what of those poor souls who draw back from intellectual dalliance, as a child shrinks from the fire? Being but children, though we reach for the truth, we mistrust the stranger. However goddesses go or sophisticates parade, "always, always, we'll walk in the light."

Yes, Saints continue to reach for the truth of all things. We read and we ponder; we raid library shelves to learn what we can from the best books; we may even study Scripture in Dutch or Hebrew or French or English; but we never lay aside our childlike confidence in the words of the prophets and kings. We trust the keenness of their vision. "Who hath believed our report?" We believe their report.

How abundantly we thank God for a Prophet who, while restoring lost words and threads of biblical text and teachings, also gives us the Bible anew, even the Masoretic Text--including blessed Deuteronomy!--as a true record of Ancient Israel. And thank the Jews for it, for their great role "in bringing forth salvation unto the Gentiles" (2 Nephi 29:4; see also 1 Nephi 5:11; 19:23; Moses 1:41).

Joseph Smith Translation Genesis 22: Bildash and Haza

Nowhere does the Joseph Smith Translation of the Holy Bible get more specific than in its rare but telling changes in Biblical names, and particularly those occuring in the Abraham narrative. The New Translation also introduces novel, spell-binding names, like Mount Hanabal in Genesis 14. At times the changes seem to reflect a wish for consistency in transcription: Girgashite does match the Hebrew better than Girgasite; Zeboiim beats Zeboim (as in KJV Genesis 14:2,8): though how would the Prophet know which choice to make? His Hebrew lessons were years away. At other times, the Prophet simply crosses out one consonant or vowel and substitutes another. Thus poor Pildash becomes Bildash, and Hazo, Haza in JST Old Testament Manuscripts 1 and 2 of Genesis 22:22.

The Authorized Version (i.e., Don't Touch) reads:

20 And it came to pass after these things, that it was told Abraham, saying, Behold, Milcah, she hath also born children unto thy brother Nahor;
21 Huz his firstborn, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel the father of Aram,
22 And Chesed, and Hazo, and Pildash [cf. JST OT Mss 1 and 2], and Jidlaph [JST OT Ms.2 has Sidlaph], and Bethuel.
23 And Bethuel begat Rebekah: these eight Milcah did bear to Nahor, Abraham’s brother.
24 And his concubine, whose name was Reumah, she bare also Tebah, and Gaham, and Thahash [JST OT Ms.2 has Thahasel], and Maachah.

Can a case be made for changing these two odd names? Could the Masoretic Text of the Bible be in error?

Yes and yes.

Professor Goshen-Gottstein has given us a Law of scribes: "By this law, he means that all scribes at all times and places make certain predictable kinds of errors" (Ronald S. Hendel, The Text of Genesis 1-11, 40). And even Latter-day Saint John Whitmer falls under this cautionary law: "Some of the names in the more extensive genealogy lists in Genesis show evidence of multiple layers of editing. As John Whitmer was making a copy of an earlier manuscript, it appears that he had difficulty reading Sidney Rigdon's handwriting in OT1 and therefore rendered some unusual spellings," Faulring, Jackson, Matthews, Joseph Smith's New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts, 586. So much then for Sidlaph and Thahasel, I suppose. And it's possible that Bildash and company are also modern scribal missteps. . .

But let's go back to ancient scribes.

Touching Hazo, what we note in the Hebrew is the consonantal root h-z-w (Het-Zayin-Waw). Upon this root, the Masoretes (whom we surely honor for the gift of the Bible) have inserted a vocalization that obviates the waw (or vav)--by converting it into a simple vowel: a long -o. But such an insertion reflects incomplete analysis of the root. We do not know what the vowels might have been, but if the reading is Haza, then it reflects an analysis of the name as Hazaw, with the final a- being both long and distinct and rounded--and thus all but whistling for a change.

Indeed some students relate the name to a place found in an Assyrian text: Hazu (ha-zu-u). Though there is no way of knowing whether this Hazu must be equated with the personal name Hazo, Hazu does show us options other than that of the Masoretic Text. And that's what Brother Joseph is doing as well. He wants the freedom to pursue options and ideas in his quest to uncover the true facts of the matter. And, at once, he shows, in utter simplicity--no lights or flares--and without hesitation, his total independence from the countless generations of scholarship bound to a traditional Text. He speaks with authority, not as the scribes.

But Bildash for Pildash: wouldn't that amount to Balderdash?

No so fast!

If anything, the unanalyzable name Pildash (and so much for the countless generations of ignorant scholarship--one little name. . .), evokes the word for concubine, pilgash. And most surprisingly, that very word occurs just two lines down in verse 24: And his pilgash, whose name was Reumah. . .

Now it doesn't take much imagination to see how an ancient scribe, a bit deaf to the wee difference between voiced and unvoiced labial stops, and working long before the text of Genesis became fixed, just might--given the proximity of the homonymous words--have mixed Bildash with pilgash and come up with Pildash.

There's something fun about it all, and yet it points the mind heavenward: "prophets again in the land."

Philologists hunting for Pildash in the wreckage of languages come up only with the late Nabatean name, Pindash (unexplained). Bildash scores more hits: The Bible gives us Bildad, a name rich in cognates throughout the Semitic world: Heb. bn + dad/dod = son of so-and-so; Bir-Dadda (cuneiform); Bil-Adad from Apil-Adda or Adad (Nuzi); Ugaritic (ie Canaanite) yields Blshsh and Blshpsh, and Bld (from ld); the word bldn signifies land. The possible derivation of Bildad, if likely not Bildash, from Apil-Adda via Bil-Adad brings us round full circle, in a confusion of labial stops, to Pildad or Pildash.

But Bilshash definitely puts Bildash into the game.






Notes:
Hazu (Esarhaddon): see Westermann's Commentary on Genesis, 368.

Ugaritic: G. del Olmo Lete and J. Sanmartin, A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition, 2 vols.


Confronted with variants, the Prophet, only at times following his Phinney Bible (or Cooperstown edition of the KJV) in these next instances (perhaps with Zeboiim, for instance), always chooses readings that better reflect the Hebrew and at once also work better for English speakers: Ajalon (3 times in the KJV) not Aijalon (the Phinney Bible name index does show Ajalon only), Lubim not Lubims, Sukiim not Sukiims, Us for Uz (the s for the ts works better than the z), Girgashite not Girgasite, Phicol not Phichol--he doesn't want a confusable ch (see Gen. 10:23; 1 Chron. 6:69; 2 Chron 12:3 and the like). The Prophet also always follows Ezra, and not Nehemiah, where variants in the names occur (Bani not Binnui; Jorah not Haniph). We don't understand much about the nature of the work involved, yet it would seem that the Prophet is not relying on a knowledge of Hebrew (these corrections were made prior to his study of that language), but on inspiration. And, in this group of inspired corrections, I would also include the reading re-em for unicorns (Isaiah 34:7)--he didn't need to wait for Hebrew lessons to give us re-em (and note the separation of consonants reflecting the glottal stop aleph), for unicorns, in this case a Hebrew singular noun intended for a collective noun in English, as consistent with English usage.

A copy of the Phinney Bible may be consulted at BYU's Rare Books library.

Mount Hanabal in the Joseph Smith Translation of Genesis 14

The Prophet Joseph left for the benefit of the Saints not one but two books of Abraham: that taken from a roll of papyrus, a physical, tangible roll of Egyptian hieroglyphs (and like the gold plates, a tangible earnest of the resurrection of the dead), now published as the Book of Abraham, and that of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Together, these two offerings fill in the picture of Abraham's life with details, stories, and revelations not found in the Holy Bible and reveal the covenant of the Priesthood God made with the fathers.

Among the easily missed details added by Brother Joseph to the ancient story of Abraham is the place name Hanabal, which could refer to one or several of the Mountains of Moab, on the east of the Dead Sea, perhaps Jebel Sihan, with its high ruins and caves. The mountain towers out of nowhere in Joseph Smith Translation Genesis 14:9--a verse not found in the current LDS edition of the Holy Bible = KJV Genesis 14:10:

1 And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations;
2 That these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar.
8 And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim;
9 With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings with five.
10 And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits [JST OT Manuscript 1 has: was filled with slime pits]; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain.

To the last verse, the Prophet adds:

and they that remained fled to the mountain[s--crossed out] which is called Hanabal. (Old Testament Manuscript 2, p. 640),

or,

to the Mountain [note the capital letter] which was called [Hanable: crossed out] Hanabal (Old Testament Manuscript 1, p. 125).

Of the two manuscripts, Manuscript 2 is the more telling: Hanabal refers to a particular peak rather than a range (the plural mountains is amended to the singular), and we are told by the ancient Hebrew redactor that people in his day still call the mountain Hanabal. By telling us what the mountain is now called, rather than what it was called, also bespeaks an etiological origin of the name, that is, one fixed from a concrete historical event. The Prophet takes care that the name is correctly spelled: Hanabal not Hanable. The spelling with b rather than v, a softening following the vowel, reflects archaic Hebrew usage; the vocalization of the Masoretic Text, on the other hand, follows post-exilic pronunciation, which would yield Ha-naval.

Any understanding of the meaning of Hanabal, which likely represents either Ha + Nabal (The Nabal) or Har + Nabal (Mount Nabal), builds around the thematic opposition of two homonymous Semitic verbs: the Arabic n-b-l (to be noble, magnanimous, as in nabl; nabil; pl. nibal, nubala: "noble; lofty, exalted, sublime, august; magnificent, splendid, glorious": Wehr's Dictionary of Modern Arabic) and Hebrew n-b-l (the Qal intransitive form of the verb signifies it sank, dropped down--and thus to fade and wear away = Klein, Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, 422). In Koehler-Baumgartner (p. 589), we find under n-b-l, which divides into the verbal pair navel (wither) and naval (be foolish), and its nominal derivatives the following meanings: wither, be contemptible, despise. Things n-b-l are "wretched things"--a lost and a fallen people--"senseless" and "foolish" both "intellectually and morally," even they who groan under a weight of "heavy sin." Related thematic roots are Arabic and Hebrew n-b-' (Arabic naba'a: "to be high, raised, elevated, protruding, projecting, prominent"; to tell, and even to prophesy = a prophet is a navi), and Hebrew n-p-l (to fall).

Akkadian n-b-l (from the verb abalu) yields the arid or dry land: in a time of war people flee the cities into the nabal, a place without water, the dry and thirsty land. Mount Dry-and-Thirsty. The place Bazu is "a forgotten place of dry land, saline ground [qaqqar tabti], a waterless place." And to think a mere moment ago, before the arrows and the brimstone fell, Lot, in Bethel, stood overlooking quite a different qaqqar or kikar: a watered plain, just like the Garden of Eden (Gen. 13:10). Another Akkadian word, nablu (nab = brilliance, shining splendor), describes flames and fierce lightning, which gods and heroes rain down on their enemies: "I fought with them, I rained fire on them." "Enlil [the prince of the powers of the air] whirls in the midst of the enemies, he keeps the flame(s) [nabla] smoking." Fury transforms flames into ball lightning: "rain down like shooting stars, strike continually like ball lightning" (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, no. N). The stars in their courses fight Sisera. And fire from heaven will complete the downfall of the Cities of the Plain.

Perhaps the primary derivation of the name Hanabal (which, again, likely represents the article ha- plus the root n-b-l or even a shortened form of the word har, or mountain, plus n-b-l) best corresponds to the Arabic root n-b-l: Mount Noble, Mount Lofty, the Splendid, the August. Mighty Mount Nebo derives from the root n-b-': Mount Prominent, or even ultimately from n-b-l. The Enochic literature (Nibley, 30), speaks of a Mount Nebus near Salem, clearly an echo from Nebo; yet we are told this is the very place where Melchizedek met Abraham after the latter rescued Lot from the battling kings of Genesis 14. Curious is an unknown mountain from Jubilees: Lubar (= l/n -b-r/l(?). On the peak of Lubar, the ark rests; at her foot, Noah's sons first build cities (Jubilees 5:28; 6:1; 7:14-17; 10:15, in Charlesworth, OT Pseudepigrapha, vol.1; Genesis Apocryphon). As near to the mark is the Mountain of Gabla or Gebal, the Horite homeland, mentioned in the Targumic readings of Genesis 14:6, just four verses shy of our Hanabal. In the Targum Mount Gabla (g-b-l "border" or "mountain") replaces Mount Seir of Edom. So we now have n-b-', l-b-r or l-b-l, and g-b-l, an entire constellation of like mountain words or names featured in the accounts of Noah, Shem, and Abraham.

A perfect vocalic match for Hanabal appears in the Benjaminite town of Neballat (Neh. 11:34). In Arabic the place is Beit Nabala (the last two vowels are both long). The meaning of Neballat or Beit Nabala might accordingly be Noble City (one thinks of Jerusalem "beautiful for situation"; or Capernaum, the "exalted," the "city upon a hill"). If the hill is also a tell, or ruin, Neballat then also bespeaks the withering root of Hebrew n-b-l, an eroded wreck. Neballat also recalls the Arabic word for a paved or tiled floor (balats), which might really have been a prominent feature of the place and which also suggests the idea of steps upward from the tar pits into Mount Nabal's protective heights.

In another stab at Hanabal, the vowels don't match: The name of the Carthaginian general is Hanni-bal, (Baal favors him (with a son): hn/hnn: to favor, grace, pity), a name comparable to the Hebrew Hanniel (see Dictionary of the Bible by Sir William Smith, 1872). We likewise resist positing an unknown nominal form h-n-b-l (as bizarre as the Psalmic word for frost: hanamal).

On the other hand, Mount Nabal, following the Hebrew understanding of the same root nbl, might signify Mount Weathered, Mount Withered, Mount Anything-but-August-and-Splendid. In other words, the exact opposite of what the Arabic root conveys. But could both readings work together to give us a true picture of Hanabal?

A secondary, etiological derivation, which plays on the Hebrew root, might exist for Hanabal, one rooted in the storyline with its account of the downfall of the kings in the desperate Vale of Siddim (how ironic for the Targum to translate Siddim as Orchards), where the warriors sink into tar pits (like our own La Brea) and wither into oblivion. The survivors, roundly beaten, flee into a weathered and eroded hill that hangs above the bottomless pits. When we say that names are etiological in origin or function, we refer to such linguistic association (including word play) centering on a historical event. Such etiological derivation in no wise affects the validity of the primary, linguistic derivation from an verbal root, upon which it plays, or elaborates.

The article ha- ("the") with the triliteral root n-b-l may thus signify (The) Mount Ruin, Withered Top. (I'm thinking of Tolkien here: Orodruin, Weathertop.) There are all kinds of suggestive hints that evoke the Hebrew notion of a Mount Nabal. A quick Internet glimpse of the Mountains of Moab arrests the soul: extinct Tannur, Jebel Shihan (Geonames.org). And on the west of the Dead Sea we spot: "The cap rock and the pillars of salt that have fallen from the mountain top" (WysInfo Docuwebs: Life from the Dead Sea: Geological Structure). Or perhaps the mountain resembled a jar. Jar in Hebrew also derives from n-b-l, or perhaps it ultimately derives from another root as per Arabic b-l-ts, (ballats), a jar, being that which, like a eons-contorted mountain, is "wrung forcibly," pinched into shape. Sunk, withered, and geologically wrung out to dry: that is Jebel Usdum, Mount Sodom.

Given that the verbal root n-b-l signifies "to fall down, faint, lose strength" (so Gesenius), or to wither and fall, fall to ruin, wear out (so Koehler and Baumgartner), and thus also to folly and stupidity, the name works a bitter and terribly apt word play: "[they foolishly] fled, and [foolishly] fell [n-p-l] there: right into the tar pits; and they that remained fled to the mountain [or to the range: herah nasu]. In place of herah [har + directional -ah, "to the mountain or to the range"], the Samaritan Pentateuch significantly has the variant h-h-r-h, "to the mountain, to that particular mountain or range," all of which gives notice that something is off, something missing in the Received Text. We look for more: "To the mountain, or range," says the Prophet: "which was called Ha-nabal." Ha-nabal then becomes not only a place of ascent and escape but the place of falling--and the place of folly (nevalah)--the place of the rout--the place of the corpse (navlah).

Mankind flees upward, trudgingly, under a withering sun--and the gravity of heavy sin. Lightning seems to dance on the blushing peak; in the gulf below, the pits spew and bubble. The sophisticated city-dweller is left an eternal Nabutum (Akkadian: Fugitive) The name Ha-Nabal spells doom: the Fall of Kings. All is folly, vanity, and disgrace.

Nabal the glorious meets Nabal the Sunken, and the height of the mountain (Jebel Shihan rises over three thousand feet) only accentuates the depth of the fall in coincidentia oppositorum, the meeting of opposites: both tar pits and the Dead Sea seem bottomless. As Hamlet would say: "Oh what a falling-off was there!" A still greater fall awaits the Cities of the Plain!

Mount Nabal and Mount Lebanon (Lebanon being the Brilliant, White Mountain, even the Holy Temple) remarkably coincide in a sobering anagram (n-b-l ~ l-b-n): on the one side, curse; on the other, blessing (cf. Braude, The Midrash on Psalms, 1:148, 484). In like manner rise the mirroring mountains of curse and blessing, Ebal and Gerizim--"on the other side Jordan" (Deuteronomy 11:29-30). Choices must be made. Lot, from the giddy ladder of Bethel (the House of God), envisions a watered Eden below--but that is "no lasting city"; it is only "when a man comes up to the top of Mount Nebo, [that] he sees in the Sea of Tiberias a whirlpool, sieve-like, which is Miriam's Well," the very well of living waters first discovered by Abraham and promised his posterity (Midrash on Psalms, 1:341; Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 3: 50-4). From Holy Bethel Lot sights not Eden, but Nabal. Abraham, climbing to higher ground, "rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad"; Moses glimpsed Galilee; Nephi, on the "exceedingly high mountain," saw Mary's well and its tree of life (John 8:56; 1 Nephi 11).

Here is irony indeed: and the more withering the more understated, in true Hebrew fashion.

Building on the ironic paronomasia in JST Genesis 14, we move to Job 14: 18 and discover "the mountain that lies prostrate" (har-nofel yibol), as some ranges seem to do, a phrase that also plays on the roots n-p-l and n-b-l. N-p-l is the primary root of falling in Hebrew, and really just amounts to n-b-l anyhow. Klein relates n-b-l (and note the reflexive n- prefix built onto all the various (n)-b-l roots) to the verbs b-l-h, b-l-l (the fall of the tower all over again), and n-p-l, verbs of fading, failing, falling, and confusion: Babel meets Sodom, and all is lost--witheringly so (Etymological Dictionary, 422). The generations of men fall like leaves, intones great Homer (cf. Jeremiah 8). Enoch on Mount Simeon, "high and lifted up"--and suspended in time--saw one generation pass after another (Moses 7).

The verse in Job speaks to a familiar, though archaic, name for weathered peaks or maybe even our own Hanabal. And here is a hint that our Ha-nabal might derive from Har-Nabal. A linguistic shift from Har-Nabal to Ha-Nabal is altogether likely, the final r dropping before the n, as perforce occurs in Arabic. Or perchance the scribal ear simply missed and misconstrued Brother Joseph's New England /r/: Ha[r]nabal, just as we find in the initial scribal mistakes for the following Book of Abraham names: Koash for Korash; Elkenah, not scribal Elkenner.

Job reads:

18 And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place.
19 The waters wear the stones: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man,

and certainly the hope of man meets destruction in Genesis 14.

Yet the translation, "the mountain falling cometh to nought (yibol)," but poorly renders the Hebrew, where we find the bound construction har-nofel, not har nofel. Thus--if we want to get picky--not any abstract mountain falls, but that abstraction which is called 'Mount Nofel'). Har-nofel distantly reflects a place name, or, more likely, it was a common designation for eroded peaks.

Again, "cometh to nought" amounts to a flawed attempt to read the verbal root n-b-l as an organic metaphor of withering. What we should read is "will sink down" or "erode": "Indeed [ulay] 'Mount Implodes' erodes to dust."

And, according to the Shoher Tov, this verse from Job does have to do with Abraham and the kingdom of Sodom. Reading Job "in the light of what Scripture says elsewhere": "The mountain falling crumbleth away refers to Sodom and its sister cities; And the rock is removed out of his place refers to Abraham, for he is the rock" (see Isaiah 51:1-2: Shoher Tov on Psalm 53: W. G. Braude, The Midrash on Psalms, 1: 486-7).

A midrashic reading of Scripture reflects literary intertextuality; yet, given the antique pulpit origin of such Psalmic homilies, the waves of midrash may also cast up historical and thematic pearls. That the rock should recall Abraham is no surprise (Isaiah 51:1-2), but neither can we read the mountain falling crumbleth without Jebel Usdum (Mount Sodom) looming before our eyes as the concrete example of all fallen kingdoms. Besides, that Psalm 53 should reveal Abraham should come as no surprise to Latter-day Saints in light of what the same psalm (which pairs with Psalm 14) says and conveys about the world of Joseph Smith at the time of his First Vision (see Braude, xvi).

Boasted History, as discipline, actually takes second seat to Midrash as interpreter of events. Students of Biblical geography remain hopelessly confused about the location of the Jordan-Pentapolis (of Genesis 14), giving us both a northern and a southern "hypothesis." The Cities of the Plain have vanished, together with their captains and kings. But one thing is certain: Latter-day Saints find the Biblical record of Abraham to be a faithful record of historical events (see Hugh Nibley, Abraham in Egypt, 171ff). Ancient Hanabal, wherever it is, comes to us both new and concrete, and the meaning of the name proposed here fits both a Semitic rootage descriptive of Nebos and noble heights and the literary themes of the etiological narrative.

The Prophet in his translations, like the faithful scribe, brings forth things both old and new. How beautiful are his feet upon the mountains, the feet that announce a gospel dispensation in which old things come to light anew.

How beautiful the mountain which is called Hanabal.



Notes: Based on notes taken from my 2001-2002 notebook. I haven't found anything else on Hanabal in books or articles about the Joseph Smith Translation.

The text, transcribed according to scholarly standards, is found in Joseph Smith's New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts, Scott Faulring, Kent Jackson, Robert Matthews (eds). The introduction to the volume and the explanations of the various manuscripts of the JST are invaluable. See also the invaluable talk, "The Doctrinal Restoration," given by Elder Bruce R. McConkie in The Joseph Smith Translation, a collection of talks edited by Monte S. Nyman and Robert S. Millet.

Other useful editions of the JST include Joseph Smith's "New Translation" of the Bible (Independence, Missouri, 1970), which I studied as a young child and of which I'm fond, and The Bible Corrected by Joseph Smith, Kenneth and Lyndell Lutes (eds), which shows the changes with more clarity. Neither is a perfect edition and both perpetuate errors. Other editions are available, given that Latter-day Saints never tire of publishing the same things over and again.

Gabla: the so-called "high mountains of Gabla" that spring up in verse 6 of the Targumic account of this story: Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis, tr. Michael Maher: 56 n. 19, a place name found elsewhere in the Targumic record and also known to Josephus as being in Edom." See also Targum Neofiti 1: Genesis, M. McNamara, 91 n. 9.

Vocalization of the stops b,g,d,k,p,t in archaic Hebrew: Speiser, Genesis, Anchor Bible Commentary.

The Samaritan Pentateuch: Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (2nd ed): O. Eisfeldt (ed), Genesis.

Debate over the etymological tie between Heb. navel and naval: is summarized in the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, IX, in which also find discussion on the "notable cluster of catchwords," n-p-l, k-sh-l, and n-b-l (fall, stumble, wither) found in Jeremiah 8, versus 12 and thirteen.

Arabic verbal roots: Hans Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, J. Milton Cowan (ed).

Geography of the Pentapolis: J. Simons, The Geographical and Topographical Texts of the Old Testament, 222-229; Neballat: Simons, p. 390.

Of Jebel Shihan: it "overlooks the Wadi al-Mujib (the Arnon) and the Dead Sea. It rises to 965 meters above sea level, and its summit is occupied by ruins and caves [a place of refuge]," Online Article: "The Karak District in the Madaba Map," by Fawzi Zayadine, part of the study, Jordan: the Madaba Mosaic Map, on the Franciscan Cyberspot.

Akkadian roots with nab-: nabu: to shine, be brilliant as in the personal names Shamash-Ne-bi-' or Ne-bi = Shamash-Nebi, a name that recalls Nephi or Ne-ph-i.

Joseph Smith Translation Psalms 14: There is a fine and useful article by Joseph F. McConkie.