<div dir="auto">sounds to me like "city hall" would be a great translation of the idiom<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Akiva Miller </div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 12:40 PM Dov Bloom via Mesorah <<a href="mailto:mesorah@lists.aishdas.org">mesorah@lists.aishdas.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto"><br><span style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">I suggest to those who are unclear on the meaning of "shaar ha-ir" or "petach shaar ha_ir" to visit some archeological sites in Eretz HaKodesh.</span><div dir="auto" style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">I was recently at a newly designated National Park of Lachish, with artifacts from the time, but not only, of Hizkiyahu and Sancheriv.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">We saw quite clearly that the Shaar HaIr was a very solid, fortified structure, perhaps with a second floor and room for a number of defenders.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">The shaar was not an iron gate or something like that, but a building.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">Think like the structure at Shaar Yafo to the left of the present road. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">So "petach shaar ha_ir" would be the doorway of this structure.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">True, BaEi Shaar Iro may be an idiom...</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">from a Israel Antiquities Authority article</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:14px;line-height:inherit;font-family:'arial','helvetica',sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(76,74,73);background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font:inherit;vertical-align:baseline"> The northern part of the gate was uncovered decades ago by a British expedition and an expedition of the Tel Aviv University, and the current excavation was engaged in completely exposing the gate. The gate that was revealed in the excavation is the largest one known in the country from the First Temple period. </span></p><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:14px;line-height:inherit;font-family:'arial','helvetica',sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(76,74,73);background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font:inherit;vertical-align:baseline"><strong style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-size:inherit;line-height:inherit;font-family:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">According to Sa'ar Ganor, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority,</strong> “The size of the gate is consistent with the historical and archaeological knowledge we possess, whereby Lachish was a major city and the most important one after Jerusalem”. According to the biblical narrative, the cities’ gates were the place where ‘everything took place’: the city elders, judges, governors, kings and officials – everyone would sit on benches in the city gate. These benches were found in our excavation”.</span></p><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:14px;line-height:inherit;font-family:'arial','helvetica',sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(76,74,73);background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font:inherit;vertical-align:baseline"> </span></p><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:inherit;line-height:inherit;font-family:'arial','helvetica',sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(76,74,73);background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">The Lachish city gate (24.50 × 24.50 m), which is now completely exposed and preserved to a height of 4 m, consists of six chambers, three on either side, and the city’s main street that passed between them. Artifacts discovered in its rooms indicate how they were used in the eighth century BCE: in the first chamber were benches with armrests, at the foot of which were numerous finds including jars, a large number of scoops for loading grain and stamped jar handles that bear the name of the official or a <span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">lmlk</span></span></p><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:14px;line-height:inherit;font-family:'arial','helvetica',sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(76,74,73);background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font:inherit;vertical-align:baseline"> </span></p><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:14px;line-height:inherit;font-family:'arial','helvetica',sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(76,74,73);background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">(belonging to the king) seal impression. Two of the handles have the seal impression <span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">lmlk hbrn</span> (belonging to the king of Hebron). The word<span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font:inherit;vertical-align:baseline"> lmlk</span> is written on one of the handles together with a depiction of a four-winged beetle (scarab), and another impression bears the name <span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">lnhm avadi, </span>who was probably a senior official during the reign of King Hezekiah. It seems that these jars were related to the military and administrative preparations of the Kingdom of Judah in the war against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, in the late eighth century BCE.</span></p></div><br><div dir="auto">Dov Bloom</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 15:34 Aharon Gal via Mesorah <<a href="mailto:mesorah@lists.aishdas.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">mesorah@lists.aishdas.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><font face="Lucida Grande" style="font-size:14px">I read the English translation to the verse:</font><div><span style="text-align:justify;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:14px"><font face="Lucida Grande">וְעֶפְרוֹן יֹשֵׁב בְּתוֹךְ בְּנֵי חֵת וַיַּעַן עֶפְרוֹן הַחִתִּי אֶת אַבְרָהָם בְּאָזְנֵי בְנֵי חֵת לְכֹל בָּאֵי שַׁעַר עִירוֹ לֵאמֹר:</font></span></div><div style="text-align:justify"><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><font face="Lucida Grande"><span style="font-size:14px">"Lechol Baei Sha’ar iro" is transated to “those who entered the gate of his town”.</span></font></span></div><div><div><font face="Lucida Grande" style="font-size:14px"><br></font></div><div><font face="Lucida Grande" style="font-size:14px">In Parashat VaYishlach it says: “kol yotzei sha’ar iro”. Will the translation there be “all those who left out the gate of his town”?</font></div><div><font face="Lucida Grande" style="font-size:14px">Seems to me that this is an idiom, that means “the <span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">inhabitants of his town”.</span></font></div><div><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:14px"><font face="Lucida Grande"><br></font></span></div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="Lucida Grande" style="font-size:14px"><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">The problem is that both Onkelos and T’ Yonatan write "</span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span>לְכֹל עָלֵי תְּרַע קַרְתֵּהּ” (LeChol Alei T’ra Karte’)</span></span></font></div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="Lucida Grande" style="font-size:14px">Did both of them mean that Efron talked just to those who entered the town?</font></div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="Lucida Grande" style="font-size:14px">or it was obvious to them that this is just an idiom, and they translated the idiom to Aramaic.</font></div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="Lucida Grande" style="font-size:14px"><br></font></div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="Lucida Grande" style="font-size:14px">Rashi writes: “shekulam batelu mimlachtan”. Rashi does not clarify who are “kulan”, but I have a feeling that he meant “all the inhabitants of his town”.</font></div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="Lucida Grande"><span style="font-size:14px">Professor Kadari, in his “Millon HaIvrit Hamikrait” writes on the Pasuk in Ruth “Kol Sha’ar Ami” (Ruth 3:11) “Kelal Ezrachei Ha’ir Beth Lechem” (all the citizens of the town Beth Lechem”). This is in-spite of the Targum there that says: “Kadam kol yotvei tra Sanhedrin rabba” “the people who who sit in front of the Great Sanhedrin). He mentioned in the same paragraph the verses from Chaye Sara and Vayishlach. ie, the meaning is the 'inhabitants of the town'.</span></font></div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="Lucida Grande" style="font-size:14px"><br></font></div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="Lucida Grande"><span style="font-size:14px">The interpretation of Professor Kadari makes sense. So why English translations are “those who entered the gate of his town”?</span></font></div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="Lucida Grande" style="font-size:14px"><span>Seems to me that all followed the steps of Targum Onkelos, Yonatan, the Septuagint. Although those targumim here translated literally, and not idiomatic.</span><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></font></div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="Lucida Grande" style="font-size:14px"><br></font></div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="Lucida Grande" style="font-size:14px">Kol Tuv,</font></div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="Lucida Grande" style="font-size:14px"><br></font></div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="Lucida Grande" style="font-size:14px">Aharon</font></div></div></div>_______________________________________________<br>
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