Some thoughts on rendering the quirks of the Masoretic Text in translation

( Disclaimer )

Something you'll see in any Hebrew text of the Bible, but lacking from translations are the occasional odd things done to particular letters in the Masoretic tradition. I think this is a shame—and indeed, has led to mistranslations, where the precise meaning of the text is only determinable through the Masoretic tradition.

( Exempli gratia )

Nevertheless, that's not actually what I primarily want to talk about here. The טעמי המקרא are not actually written in the text of Torah scrolls: the information they convey goes right back in the Oral Law, but their textual representation is a late innovation, and is therefore not written in Torah scrolls. (Neither are the dots indicating the vowels, another late innovation. Reading from the Torah would be so much easier if the Jews did what the Muslims do—and what Wikipedia does for the purposes of illustration here—and wrote both of these on the text, but in different colours, so you can tell what is canonical and what is not.)

Even just looking at the bare Masoretic Text, though, there are occasional twiddles of one form or another; but they get left out of English translations, and I think that's a shame. Here's some examples:

In Gen. 33:4, Jacob is about to meet his brother Esau for the first time since Jacob fled, many years ago, after hearing Esau vow to kill him. The text reads:

Esau ran to greet him, and embraced him, and fall upon his shoulders, ȧṅḋ k̇i̇ṡṡėḋ ḣi̇ṁ, and they wept.

וירץ עשו לקראתו ויחבקהו ויפל על צוארו וׄיׄשׄקׄהׄוׄ ויבכו

You can imagine the field day the commentators have with the dots above "and kissed him". What do they mean? Did it mean Esau was not really sincere? Were they part of the Word of G-d, or were they put in later?( Read on. )

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( rant )