Genesis 3:7
Footnote:
117 | Cities of Themselves Hebrew וידעו כי עירמם הם Firstly, notice that עירמם irmam is different from ערומים arumim "naked ones" which was just used in Genesis 2:25. What could it be? Scholars assume the letter י was dropped from "naked ones" עירמים irrumim in their interpretations but irrumim is not the same as arumim. Furthermore, this does not follow the usual pattern of word constructs that end with two letter ממ מם. The ending מם occurs around 240 times in the Hebrew scriptures and is usually the third person plural suffix as in ירומם "he is exalting them" (Hosea 11:7) or תקומם "he is standing them up" (Isaiah 58:12) or adverbial. The phrase כי עירמם הם is not simple to decipher, especially when obscured by so much muck. The construct עירמם irmam doesn't occur anywhere else in the scriptures, but its components do. Traditionally it is taken for an "irregular" form of ערום arum the masculine for "naked," similar to the more common feminine ערוה arvah "nakedness." These stem from the root ערה arah (Strong's #6168). The noun עיר is a masculine noun and also means "city". The plural form of cities is the contracted ערים irim in which the first letter yod is dropped, hence the straight translation is "their cities." The word "city" itself is derived from the root עור (Strong's #5782) meaning "to awaken, arouse." The word תפקחנה (tipkakhnah) is the third person plural feminine form of the verb פקח (paqach), meaning "to open." It can be "they are opening" or "they are being opened." The feminine plural verb construct is the same for all the strong incomplete verb forms except the reflexive: Additionally, we also find that עיר means "young male donkey" (Strong's #5895). The similarity between these three words could certainly cause a lot of confusion. The plural for "young colts/donkeys" can be either עירים or עירם (cf. Genesis 32:15) thus the plural of עירם with the possessive suffix ם- "their young colts/donkeys" can also be valid translation, however, the context doesn't accommodate this meaning. |