Genesis 3:7
Awakened
And they are being opened, eyes of the both of themselves, and they, themselves are perceiving that he was crafty with them. And they are sewing together each leaf of a fig tree, and they are making for themselves a girdle.And the eyes of the two shall be opened, and they shall know that they are naked; and they shall sew together the leaves of the fig tree, and shall make to themselves girdles.
And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed leaves of the fig tree, and made girdles for themselves.
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
And the eyes of both were opened, and they perceived that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons to go round them.
Footnotes
| 117 | He Deceived Themselves Hebrew וידעו כי עירמם הם Firstly, notice that עירמם irmam is different from ערומים arumim "naked ones" which was just used in Genesis 2:25. What could it be? Scholars add in the letter י to make it a plural "naked ones" עירמים irrumim in their interpretations but the reading can't be changed, because irrumim is not the same as arumim. Furthermore, this does not follow the usual pattern of word constructs that end with two letter ממ מם. The ending מם occurs around 240 times in the Hebrew scriptures and is usually the third person plural suffix as in ירומם "he is exalting them" (Hosea 11:7) or תקומם "he is standing them up" (Isaiah 58:12) or adverbial. It is exceedingly rare that two mems are meant to be a plural suffix with the י yod dropped. The phrase כי עירמם הם is not simple to decipher, especially when obscured by so much muck. The construct עירמם irmam doesn't occur anywhere else in the scriptures, but its components do. Traditionally it is taken for an "irregular" form of ערום arum the masculine for "naked," similar to the more common feminine ערוה arvah "nakedness." These stem from the root ערה arah (Strong's #6168). Because there is no "yod" in the proper spelling of these words, it makes it all the more difficult. The addition of the letter י would create a rare form only found in a few places. The noun עיר is a masculine noun and also means "city". The plural form of cities is the contracted ערים irim in which the first letter yod is dropped, but we know that in this case, the letter י is not being added. Hence one valid interpretation could be "their cities." But this does not create any cohesive context. The word "city" itself is derived from the root עור (Strong's #5782) meaning "to awaken, arouse." But the two מ mem letters don't fit here either and thus "he awakened them" isn't quite accurate. This leads us to the verb root ערם to be shrewd, crafty (Strong's #6191) the only verb that actually matches: "And they, themselves knew that he had deceived them" or "And they, themselves knew that he was crafty with themselves." Breakdown:
Psalm 83:3 contains a Hiphil causative imperfect form of this verb: על עמך יערימו סוד ויתיעצו על צפוניך "Against the people of yourself they are scheming/craftily plotting [יערימו] a secret counsel..." (Psalm 83:3 RBT) The Hiphil causative would be ערימ and the Piel עירמם the yod placed for vocalization, a weak first guttural verb. See Gesenius Verbs with Gutturals. The word תפקחנה (tipkakhnah) is the third person plural feminine form of the verb פקח (paqach), meaning "to open." It can be "they are opening" or "they are being opened." The feminine plural verb construct is the same for all the strong incomplete verb forms except the reflexive:
Additionally, we also find that עיר means "young male donkey" (Strong's #5895). The similarity between these three words could certainly cause a lot of confusion. The plural for "young colts/donkeys" can be either עירים or עירם (cf. Genesis 32:15) thus the plural of עירם with the possessive suffix ם- "their young colts/donkeys" can also be valid translation, however, the context clearly doesn't accommodate this meaning. |
| 118 | Strongs #2290 ha-gorat. Feminine singular construct of חגורה. A girdle means waist-belt and such it surrounds, or encircles the body at the loin/waist. Again the scholars of the past assumed it as a plural construct with a "missing" vav חגרת for חגרות. The plural was craftily "fixed in" by way of Masorete vowel pointing— חֲגֹרֹֽת whereas the pronunciation could now be as though it were a plural hagorot. But the singular meaning is plainly attested to in 1 Kings 2:5: בחגרתו "the girdle of himself." |
