[Mesorah] Va'avadum v'eenu osam

[Zev Sero via Mesorah]

On 04/08/17 08:02, Akiva Miller via Mesorah wrote:
> But I'm very fuzzy on what "eenu" means in this pasuk. Perhaps it
> means "they (Mitzrayim) will torture them (Yisrael)", as in Shoftim
> 20:5. But then the words in Bereshis would have to switch
> subject/object in the middle of the pasuk: "They (Yisrael) will serve
> them (Mitzrayim), and they (Mitzrayim) will torture them (Yisrael)." I
> suppose this is possible, but it is not a normal way of speaking.

That is indeed the case, and it is *grammatically* ambiguous, but I put 
it to you that it *is* a normal way of speaking because there is no real 
ambiguity.  If I say "Yossi met Yanki and he hit him", you genuinely 
don't know who hit whom, so I shouldn't say that.  But if you already 
know that one of these is a violent boy and one is not, or if I specify 
it in the sentence, "You know that awful Yossi, who's in my Yanki's 
class, and who's always hitting other kids?  They were sitting together 
yesterday and he hit him, and he came home crying", then you know the 
subject in both of the last two phrases, and you are not confused by the 
sudden switch of subjects.

Evidence for this:  In the first phrase of the pasuk the subject is 
clearly "your seed"; and yet you seem to have no problem understanding 
that in the second phrase the subject has changed to the owners of the 
"land that is not theirs".  It's not at all obvious from the formal 
grammar that it is the Jews who will serve the Egyptians and not the 
other way around, but it's obvious to any normal reader, and you didn't 
even notice.  So why cavil at changing back to "your seed" as the 
subject for the next phrase?   Perhaps because "va`avadum ve`inu osam" 
is punctuated as a single phrase, so the mind rebels at a change of 
subject within it?



> I suspect that "eenu" actually means that "they (Yisrael) will BE
> tortured BY them (Mitzrayim)", similar to Eicha 5:11.

I'm not sure what you mean here.  "Inu" in that pasuk means the same as 
everywhere else.  The Bavlim are the subject, and the women are the 
object; Tziyon is the location.


> However, Onkelos may shed light on this point, because he makes the
> object a standalone word in both cases, and uses different words for
> those objects: "v'yifl'chun b'hon, veeanun yas'hon". I know enough
> Aramaic to equate peh-lamed-ches with ayin-beis-daled, and the second
> verb seems to have the same root in both languages. It is the object
> here that attracts my attention: What is the difference between
> "b'hon" and "yas'hon"?

Onkelos solves your problem by switching the subject and object of the 
first prase.  "Veyiflechun behon" means "they will enslave them", so the 
land's inhabitants are the subject, and "your seed" are the object of 
both phrases.  In Hebrew that would be "Veya`avdu bahem", as in Vayikra 
25:39, "lo sa`avod bo".   Had Onkelos kept the subject/object of the 
original he would have written "veyiflechun lehon", which is "veya`avdu 
lahem".    Note Shemos 1:13, "Ve'aflachu Mitzra'ei *yas* B'nei Yisrael".

-- 
Zev Sero                May 2017, with its *nine* days of Chanukah,
zev at sero.name           be a brilliant year for us all