The Names of God II

 

I used to think that "Adonay" was a first-person possessive; but it is not. It is an example of the so-called "honorific plural." The word is "Adon," and it means "master." The first-person possessive is "adoni," as one would expect. That's what I expected too, and I theorized that the form "Adonay" might have been influenced by Egyptian. But no. Let's see what the texts can tell us. (By the way, the above illustrations are from tanakh.info.)

These verses are translated in my JPS Tanakh as follows:

Gen 24:9 "So the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and swore to him as bidden,"

Gen 24:10: "Then the servant took ten of his master's camels and set out, taking with him all the bounty of his master; and he made his way to Aram-naharaim, to the city of Nahor.

Gen 24:12 "And he said, 'O Lord, God of my master Abraham, grant me good fortune this day, and deal graciously with my master Abraham:"

In verse 9, we see that "his master" is "adonayv" (the honorific plural) in the Masoretic Hebrew and in the Samaritan Hebrew. In the Aramaic of the Targum Onkelos, the form is "rabbunayah," which I think is an honorific plural for "his master." The Samaritan Targum is lacking. The Peshitta uses a completely different word, "mar," without any honorific. This is similar to the pattern we've seen before.

In the illustration to verse 10, the same pattern continues: the two Hebrew texts us the "adonayv" form, meaning "his master (honorific plural)"; Onkelos uses "ribbuneyhu," another word with the same meaning, including the honorific; and the Peshitta uses the word "mar," meaning "master," with no honorific. As in the previous verse, the Aramaic of the Samaritan Targum is lacking.

In verse 12 the pattern is much the same: The two Hebrew texts are in agreement, using the simple "adoni," "my master," when referring to Avraham; Onkelos stays close to the Hebrew, using the form "ribbuni"; and the Peshitta has the form "Alaha" for God (no honorific plural) and the simple "mari," "my master," when referring to Abraham.

Our conclusions so far can be summarized as follows: The two Hebrew texts are in agreement, and they do use the "honorific plural." Onkelos, though its language is Aramaic, apes the Hebrew, even using the Hebrew word "Elohim,"which cannot be an Aramaic word, since Aramaic masculine plurals end in "-in," not "-im." Where the Samaritan Targum was available, it used simple, non-honorific forms such as "Elah." The Peshitta uses simple, non-honorific forms such as "Alaha" (cf. "Allah" in Arabic) and "mar." Hebrew thus appears to be quite alone in its curious use of a plural to "honor" a singular.

Original text Copyright © 2023 by Donald C. Traxler.