Judges 5 says,
"Arise, Barak, lead away your captives, O son of Abin'o-am. Then down marched the remnant of the noble; the people of the LORD marched down for him against the mighty."Hebrews 11 likewise says,
"what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight."In researching Barak ben Abinoam in commentaries and other translations, if I wasn't already somewhat intrigued enough, consider that in the King James Version, Barak is identified incorrectly in the text of 1 Samuel as 'Bedan.'
6 comments:
Just out of morbid curiosity I googled "Obama" and "antichrist," and came across a website claiming that Obama qualifies because "barak" in Hebrew means "lightning" - drawing the reader's attention to Our Lord's saying "I saw Satan falling from Heaven like lightning" - and the fact that "bama" in Hebrew means "high place." Get it? Lightning, high place - he's obviously the Great Beast...
(Of course, I believe that President-elect Obama's first name is from an Arabic word that means "blessed," and is related to the Hebrew "baruch" instead of "barak.")
billyd - I try not to go there on the fringe sites. You're probably right about the actual etymology - but I'm talking about homonyms.
Oh, no - I'm with you. I think it's interesting the way that the lectionary meshes with the "outside world"sometimes. I wasn't trying to shoot down your observation about Barak/Barrack, just telling about a less benign reading of Obama's name.
And I don't recommend going on the fringe sites, either. Like I said, it was out of morbid curiosity.
Barak is identified incorrectly in the text of 1 Samuel as 'Bedan.'
It's Bedan in the Hebrew in that verse, too.
Yes, but the LXX, Syriac use 'Barak.' RSV, NRSV and ESV prefer the LXX and Syriac manuscripts.
Yes, the scribal error must have been done some time between the translation of the LXX and the compiling of the Masoretic text. The editors of the KJV probably thought that by sticking to the Hebrew they were getting back to the original sources, when this is one of those instances where the LXX is more accurate than the Hebrew we have access to now.
It's pretty easy to see how someone might misread a "resh" for a "dalet." The manuscript would have had to have been pretty inferior to wrest a "nun sofit" from a "kof," though.
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