Ga’al
It is amazing how different translations can use helper words and punctuation that isn’t in the Hebrew to make such different senses of things!
My mom and I stumbled across one such example when thinking about Ga’al, in Judges 9:26-29. This is about the revolt against Avimelekh.
I was reading Stern’s and in this translation, it keeps using the phrase “Ga’al the son of a slave.” For instance, this is how vs. 26 begins. Then, Ga’al’s speech is phrased:
“Who is Avimelekh? Think of the contrast with Sh’khem! Why should we serve Avimelekh? Isn’t he the son of Yeruba’al? Isn’t Z’vul his officer? Serve the men of Hamor the father of Sh’khem! Why should we serve Avimelekh? If I were in control of this people, I’d get rid of Avimelekh!”
Reading this, I thought of a way to understand what was happening. Hamor was the father of Sh’khem that Shim’on and Levi killed back in Genesis 34 after the rape of Dinah. The women and children of Sh’khem were taken captive. So maybe, this Ga’al is descended from that population of captives? Perhaps the phrase “son of a slave” could be taken in a sense like “descended from slaves” as the African American population of America would use it? So when Ga’al is whipping the people up against Avimelekh, maybe he is like “why follow a son of Yeruba’al? Follow the *real* rulers of Sh’khem (meaning himself), a people descended from Hamor!”
But when I told my mom these thoughts, she had no idea where I could have gotten that! She had read this section in the Israel Bible. In there, Ga’al is listed as “Ga’al son of Ebed.” Perhaps Ebed is a word that could either be a proper name or could mean slave?
Then, in Ga’al’s speech, the punctuation and helper words go like this:
“Who is Avimelech and who are [we] Sh’chemites, that we should serve him? This same son of Yerubaal and his lieutenant Zebul once served the men of Hamor, the father of Shechem; so why should we serve him? Oh, if only this people were under my command, I would get rid of Avimelech!”
In this version, it sounds like Avimelech is the one who has served the men of Hamor/Shechemites, so then why should they, the men of Hamor/Shechemites, serve him.
I certainly don’t know enough Hebrew to say which one makes more sense from the text! But the Stern’s understanding makes a little more sense to me, because otherwise I don’t understand quite as much why Hamor is being brought up at all. I can certainly think of reasons why that would happen, but if Ga’al was literally descended from Hamor, it makes the most sense to me. After all, Avimelech got support to overthrow the other sons of Yerubaal by the argument that he was genetically half from Shechem, so I can totally see that the best PR argument to overthrow Avimelech would be “hey, I am 100% Shechem!”
What do you guys think? Does anyone know more backstory that would shed light on which sense the speech was meant?
