Exodus 1:1
Going into to Her
And a mighty one of names of sons of God Contends ("Israel"),1 the ones going into Dual-Siege ("Egypt"), self eternal Heel-Chaser, each man and the household of himself have gone in.Footnote:
| Exo. 1:1 | Jewish tradition taught that the opening words of the books of the Torah constituted the book names. Interestingly, the opening words of Exodus are dropped in favor of שמות, shemōt, "Names", from the beginning words of the text: ואלה שמות בני ישראל.
The opening words are actually, "And elah of names of sons..."
However, if I don't like this, or this doesn't align with my theology, I can interpret elah as a plural pronoun "these" and then add in the word "are" and the problem is solved. But this creates another problem: the name of the book becomes "These" and that doesn't make any sense. Why would Moses use proper opening words for the names of the other books of the Torah, but for Exodus, he titles it "These"? Nevermind, the second opening word is "close enough"!
(cf. The Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 14b-15a, discusses the structure and naming of the Torah books, reflecting early Jewish scholarly practices from the Second Temple period, 516 BCE–70 CE) |