"All Those Going Out of the Gate of His City": Have the Translations Got It Yet?

The phrase כל־יצאי שער עירו (Gen 34:24a, b) is part of the narrator's summary of the Shechemites' response to the circumcision proposal. The lexical and semantic evidence supports a military collocation for the phrase. Moreover, the language surrounding Abraham's transaction at the ci...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: SCHMUTZER, ANDREW J. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Eisenbrauns 2007
In: Bulletin for biblical research
Year: 2007, Volume: 17, Issue: 1, Pages: 37-52
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Parallel Edition:Non-electronic
Description
Summary:The phrase כל־יצאי שער עירו (Gen 34:24a, b) is part of the narrator's summary of the Shechemites' response to the circumcision proposal. The lexical and semantic evidence supports a military collocation for the phrase. Moreover, the language surrounding Abraham's transaction at the city gate with Ephron (Gen 23:10b, 18b) is shown to be an inadequate semantic parallel, depending more on culture and architecture. This article argues that the repetition of the phrase in the same verse (34:24a, b) reflects the narrator's rhetorical skill that "humanizes" a catastrophe, underscoring its distributive and irreversible state. By arguing more for "elders" or "citizens," the translations have missed the narrator's association of the circumcised group with a war idiom.
ISSN:2576-0998
Contains:Enthalten in: Bulletin for biblical research
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.2307/26424193