What Does Genesis 38:13 Mean?
And it was told to Tamar, saying, Behold, your father-in-law goes up to Timnath to shear his sheep.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And it was told Tamar, saying, Behold thy father in law goeth up to Timnath to shear his sheep.THE KEY
The hinge is the report: Tamar learns of Judah’s ascent while his journey to the shearing is already underway.
THE MEANING
You see news bring someone else’s movement into Tamar’s present before he arrives. Judah is going up to the sheep-shearing, and a distant event becomes known to her through a report.
THE ROOT
עֹלֶה
ʿoleh going up
GROWS FROM
עלה
עָלָה (ʿalah) means to rise, ascend, or go up.
The verb belongs to a root whose branches include both ascent and what goes up. That shared motion lets Judah’s journey carry the sense of rising before the flock is shorn.
ALSO GROWS
ʿolah: An ascent; also a burnt offering, literally something that goes up.
עֹלָה
It shares the root עלה and shows the same upward motion appearing in a different kind of action.
maʿalah: An ascent, uphill way, or step.
מַעֲלָה
This noun shares the root עלה and makes the upward direction in “goeth up” concrete.
THE PATTERN
A report brings an event beyond someone’s sight into that person’s present awareness.
And David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep.Therefore his sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, look, the one you love is weak.And, behold, Cushi came; and Cushi said, Let good news be brought to my lord the king, for the LORD has judged for you this day from the hand of all who rise against you.THE THREAD
And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder standing on the earth, and its head reached to the heavens; and behold, messengers of God were climbing up and coming down on it.The Hebrew word for “ascending” here comes from the same root, עלה, as “goeth up” in Tamar’s report. Genesis 28 makes that upward motion visible in a scene where ascent and descent meet.
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