You’ve heard me discuss this topic at some length within the realm of Genesis 1 and how “in the beginning” appears nowhere in any manuscript that we have of Genesis, ever.
I’m sadly unable to read my Bible lately without hopping into “I don’t think it actually says that in the Hebrew” and I realize this tedious task that burdens my soul is not for everyone, but that’s why I’m here I suppose.
Today, I sat in my library reading Daniel and I didn’t get far before I realized something outstanding about the Translation that I’m reading which is the Tree of Life Translation — a very Jewish rendering of the original manuscripts with 100s of Scholars on their board — I got to Daniel 1:9 which reads: “Now God caused the chief official to show mercy and compassion to Daniel” TLT
Now, I thought: “I love that God caused that, I love that God isn’t vacant in the Old Testament understanding of YHWH” and so I decided to grab a few other of my bibles like the NLT, Legacy, NET and CJB (Complete Jewish Bible).
They read as follows:
Now God had given the chief of staff both respect and affection for Daniel (NLT)
And God gave Daniel favor and compassion ⌊before⌋ the commander of the court officials (LEB)
Then God made the overseer of the court officials sympathetic to Daniel (NET)
And God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs (ESV)
God causes the chief officer to be kind and sympathetic toward Dani’el (CJB)
Do you notice anything in these texts?
I immediately noticed the difference in meaning between a few of them (ESV, LEB, Not Showing is Legacy) and the other texts of NLT, NET, and CJB (noting that CJB obviously has a Jewish mind behind it).
In the former, you have God giving Daniel something by a means unknown but can be implied by the context. In the latter, you have God changing a man’s heart (the means by which it occurs) to give Daniel something.
Do you care about that? Maybe not on the front, but it should give you some pause because for myself I have always made a practice of looking at different translations — having spent time on a translation team myself.
A few reasons why I care about this:
(1) I want the most accurate and reliable translation to the manuscripts we have
(2) I want bias to be minimized
(3) I want to know how ancient Israel saw their God who is now my God
(4) Is the translation rendering implications into the text or just translating?
So, which is right? Let’s look at the Hebrew and see.
וַיִּתֵּ֤ן הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ אֶת־דָּ֣נִיֵּ֔אל לְחֶ֖סֶד וּֽלְרַחֲמִ֑ים לִפְנֵ֖י שַׂ֥ר הַסָּרִיסִֽים׃
This would hard render as: “gave Elohim “to” [el is my judge] daniel compassion (there are two words here in English but one in Hebrew denoting both English words) in the face of (or before) the chief eunuch”
What do you think?
Do you favor the NLT NET and CJB or the ESV LEB?