Yuku free message boards

The "big deal", pensteel, is that the Hebrew text is specifically worded in the singular (atzum, I will fast) and the meaning, per every commentator who offers an emendation, is that Estér was saying that she was going to fast too, even though she was surrounded by gentile attendants - remember that, at this point in the story, nobody in the palace knows she is Jewish.

As for Uri's objection, I do not put much stock in Pseudo-Yonatan which is almost certainly not by Yonatan ben Uzziyel and is unreliable as a translation (the text of this Targum does, as Uri says, have the plural form of the verb natzum, we will fast, but this is not what Estér says in the Hebrew). The heavily Midrashic Targim Shéni is even less reliable as a translation.

pensteel wrote:

---

My question was more, "Even if what they are saying is true, what does this prove?"

---

I do detest the use of pronouns - such scope for vagueness and/or misunderstanding. Who are the "they" you refer to, please?

pensteel wrote:

---

I'm confused by what this Christian, or any Christian, person or whatever is trying to prove out of Esther making her gentile companions fast. How does this make her a racist? This current discussion is over the nuances of the Hebrew in Esther but it seems like the initial challenge was "Esther is a racist" and since forcing your companions to fast does not seem to be in any particular sense racist (even if it were true) I'm having trouble understanding the person's comment. Or have we left that discussion and are just wondering about grammar?

---

I think the point the guy was trying to make was that, in his twisted view, Queen Estér was abusing her position of power by forcing her gentile attendants to take part in a religious exercise (namely fasting) in order to appease God and ensure her safety when she unlawfully approached the king, and also so that God would influence the king in favour of the Jews who were at that stage facing extermination because of Haman's edict.

Of course, at this point in the story, nobody in the palace knew that Estér was a Jewess but I doubt the guy I was talking to had thought his accusation through to that extent; I think he was just finding an excuse to demonise the Jewish heroine. He certainly was not in the least interested in my explanation that the Hebrew text actually has her saying "I will be fasting too" as opposed to "My [gentile] attendants and I will all be fasting too".

Searching,

You have hit the nail squarely on the head; translation is not and can never be an exact science, even when translating between two languages that are similar one to the other (and Hebrew is not similar to any other language, with the possible exceptions of Aramaic and, to a lesser degree, Arabic). The reason for this is that few words of any language have one and only one sense (or meaning) - most words in most languages have several different meanings. For example, the Hebrew word רֹאשׁ rosh means head, but it can also mean top, and it can also mean the most important part of something.

Now the art of translation lies in finding the word in the target language which is the closest in meaning to each word in the source language. Maybe that appears obvious, but it has two side-effects that are less obvious: some subtle nuances of meaning may well be lost in the translation, while other, spurious, meanings may be introduced. And this is unavoidable. An excellent example of this occurs in the case of the Hebrew verb לִשְׁמֹר li-sh'mor. The primary meaning of this verb is to guard, but it can also mean to keep, or even to observe or to fulfil (a law). However the verbs "to observe" and "to fulfil" also have other meanings: "to observe" can also mean to witness or to watch something happening, and "to fulfil" can also mean to bring something to completion - but the Hebrew verb לִשְׁמֹר li-sh'mor cannot have any of these secondary senses. God frequently exhorts Yisrael in the Torah to "keep His laws" - for example

וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם מִצְו‍ֹתַי וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם "keep my commands and do them" (Vayikra 22:31), and
לְאַהֲבָה אֶת יְיָ אֱלֹהֶיךָ... וְלִשְׁמֹר מִצְו‍ֹתָיו וְחֻקֹּתָיו וּמִשְׁפָּטָיו "(to) love Adonai your God... and (to) keep His commands, His inexplicable rules and His judgements..." (D'varim 30:16)

פְּלֹנִי הֹלֵךְ עַל הַיָּם