Aantekeningen bij de Bijbel
Vragen, overdenkingen en achtergronden over de Bijbel,
welke resulteren in allerlei aantekeningen.
welke resulteren in allerlei aantekeningen.
Zie hier voor een verklaring van de gebruikte coderingen.
'ed, zn; TWOT - 38d
nevel, damp, mist
Diverse Auteurs, NetBible, , [2007], Gen 2:6, The conjunction vav introduces a third disjunctive clause. The Hebrew word אֵד ('Ed) was traditionally translated 'mist' because of its use in Job 36:27. However, an Akkadian cognate edu in Babylonian texts refers to subterranean springs or waterways. Such a spring would fit the description in this context, since this water ?goes up? and waters the ground. Peter D.H. Broers, Woordenboek van het Bijbels Hebreeuws, , [2007], p. 5, H.W.F. Gesenius, Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, , [1979], , R. Laird Harris, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, , [2003], 38d, A.S. Yahuda, Language of the Pentateuch in its Relation to Egyptian [1933], Vol. 1, , [1933], 156-158, Our view is best illustrated by the employment of the word אֵד in verse 6 [Gen 2], where the irrigation of the rainless earth is described. It is true this word is interpreted by many modern commentators as identical with the Akkadian, edu 'flood', and the occurance of this word is even advanced by them as a conclusive proof that the author could only have thought of the flooding in the Mesopotamian plain by the Tigris {Gressman, Paradiessage, [1921], p. 42} and Euphrates. But if such a phenomenon really was in the author's mind, it is much more plausible to assume that he had Egypt in mind because of the very argument advanced that the אֵד was to replace the absent rain. Quite apart from this purely logical argument אֵד cannot possibly refer to a flood, because a flood does not, as the text has it, 'go forth מִן-הָאָרֶץ from the earth', but from a water or a river, and moreover it would only have 'watered' the adjacent portions, and not, as it is said, אֶת-כָּל-פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה 'the whole face of the earth'. Thus the interpretaion of אֵד as 'flood' must on these grounds alone be dismissed. If we now revert to the old interpretation of אֵד as mist, cloud, dew, we find that it is completely confirmed by Egyptian, as אֵד turns out to be nothing else than the Egyptian i3d.t = אאד.ת or איאד.ת 'dew' (Er.Gr. 6), thus e.g. Urk. iv, 217, 10, where i3d.t is the dew which the gods let fall from heaven. See also Urk. iv, 615, 15; Ebers Körpert. 77, 21; Nav. Totb. 15, A iv, 7; Urk. iv, 385 for water. Our passage is now perfectly clear: אֵד yields exactly the conception of mist which 'goes forth out of the earth', is dissolved in dew and 'waters the whole face of the earth'. It is very characteristic of tropical countries that in the non-rainy seasons the dew in the morning often falls so heavily that it is psread like a thick fog, profusely saturating the ground. It is just this phenomenon so frequently witnessed in Egypt, especially in fertile regions (cf. inter alia Schäfer, ÄZ. 31, 51 ff.), which the author had in mind whe he described the watering of the ground before there was rain. It now becomes clear, why he prefaced the description of the Garden of Eden by the remark about the dew. This was done intentionally because, in the absence of rain and inundation, the dew appeared to him to be the sole means of watering the ground. Zie de huisregels welk commentaar wordt opgenomen!
