(06-11-2019, 12:56 PM)Dana Wrote:(06-10-2019, 12:32 PM)nill Wrote: If anyone is interested, you might want to take a quick look at this article from the New York Magazine.
I think Alter's version of Genesis 21 is remarkable. Even the Stone Edition has translated pakad as remembered. The ambiguity surrounding the preposition for, (to me), turns the narration around considerably! Joyful Sarah is now a woman being mocked, the laughter directed at her from society, rather than with her. I believe he is not taking much liberty with the Hebrew at all with that rendition, considering the patriarchal times and the history. After all, she was a 90 year old woman, and it must have felt being "singled out or counted," at that age. Definitely an insightful perspective.
Similarly, in NICOT's The Book of Genesis; Chapters 18-50 one reads:
And Sarah said: "God has made a joke of me; whoever hears will laugh at me."
To be is to stand for. - Abraham Joshua Heschel