vayikra in Isa 9:6

[Guest]

In Isaiah 9:6..."Vayikra sh'mo pele yoaytz ayl gibor avee ad sar shalom"....(that's one way to transliterate it...lol, but you know what I mean, I'm sure) Anyway...doesn't "Vayikra" literally mean, "AND HE CALLED"??? Most places I find it(and there are a TON) throughout Tanakh, from Lev. 1:1 to Jer. seem to agree. So, why isn't Isaiah 9:6 translated as "And He called His Name Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace"??? I mean, why not? It would clarify that God is giving His Son His Name and not man and would make Isaiah9 a better prooftext for Yeshua's Messiahship.(IMO) Also, it would take away any suggestion that Man gave him his name as a mere symbol...again(IMO):)

Am I onto something? If I have missed this explanation on your site, sorry...:)

[admin]

וַיִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ פֶּלֶא יוֹעֵץ אֵל גִּבּוֹר אֲבִיעַד שַׂר־שָׁלוֹם

Good point. The Vav consecutive would make this a perfect tense verbal, "and He called" (assuming God is the subject) OR "and his name was/is called" (assuming that sh'mo is the subject of the clause). The LXX supports the idea of "he is called" since the 3ps passive of kaleo, to call.

Thanks for the puzzle! I will check some other sources to see if there are variant readings.

- john

[admin]

I found the following response of Dr. James D. Price, professor of Hebraic Studies on a listserv entry:

================

12/15/97

Your friend is mistaken about Isaiah 9:6 [vs. 5 in Hebrew] for several
reasons:

(1) Not all Jews translate the verse as he has been led to believe. For
example, the Greek translation of the OT known as the Septuagint (LXX)
translated the expression as "his name is called." The LXX was translated
by Jews in the 3rd century BC, and thus not affected by the Christian-
Jewish debates over this issue. It is true that the LXX paraphrased the
translation of the names in that verse, but the translation of the verb
is the important thing here. The Jewish Tanach that I have translates
the verse as follows: "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given;
and the government is upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called
"Wonderful counsellor of the mighty God, of the everlasting Father,
of the Prince of peace". Obviously these Jewish translators had no
problem rendering the verb as a passive. However, their insertion of
the word "of" in several places is not justified by any rule of Hebrew
grammar that I know, nor by the rendering of the verse in the Talmud
(see below).

(2) In the Talmud the verse is translated as follows: "For unto us a child is
born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder:
and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty, Judge,
Everlasting, Father, Prince, and Peace. [Sanhedrin 94a]. Obviously this
is an authentic Jewish translation. Therefore, those who have persuaded
your friend otherwise have misled him.

(3) Your friend seems to be unaware of the well-known grammatical
construction referred to as the indefinite personal subject. See the
discussion of this in the Gesenius-Kautzsch-Cowley Hebrew Grammar
(Oxford, 1910) § 144d (p. 460). Literally the Hebrew would be translated
as "One will call his name XXX," but most often translators render the verb
as a passive instead. The Gesenius-Kautzsch-Cowley grammar lists
Isa. 9:6 [5] as one such case. So your friend is wrong in stating that the
active stem [Qal] of the verb "qara'" never is translated as a passive.

Here are some examples of where the Qal stem of the verb "qara'" [call]
is properly translated as though it were passive when it governs the word
"shem" [name] as its object, and has an indefinite personal subject.

Genesis 11:9 Therefore its name is called Babel,
'al ken qara' shemah babel

Genesis 19:22 Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
'al ken qara' shen-ha'ir zo'ar

Genesis 25:26 and his name was called Jacob.
wayyiqra' shemo ya'aqob

Genesis 25:30 Therefore his name was called Edom.
'al ken qara' shemo 'edom

Genesis 29:34 Therefore his name was called Levi.
'al ken qara' shemo lewi

Genesis 31:48 Therefore its name was called Galeed,
'al ken qara' shemo gal'ed

Genesis 33:17 Therefore the name of the place is called Succoth.
'al ken qara' shem-hammaqom sukkoth

=================

And second response from Dr. Price:

Your friend, needs to study the syntax
of the Hebrew expression "X called the name of Y Z,"
where X is the person who gives the name, Y is the person
or thing receiving the name, and Z is the name given.
An exhaustive study of these expressions in the Tenach
indicates the following:

(1) When waw-consecutive is used, the syntax is:
wayyiqra' X ('et) shem Y Z [where Y may be a pronoun]

(2) When waw-conjunctive is used, the syntax is:
we-X qara' ('et) shem Y Z [where Y may be a pronoun]

(3) When no conjunction is used, the syntax is:
qara' X ('et) shem Y Z

(4) When Z receives special emphasis, the syntax is:
Z qara' X ('et) shem Y

(5) When X is a pronoun implied in the conjugate form of the verb,
the syntax is:
qara'/yiqra' ('et) shem Y Z [where Y may be a pronoun]

I gave many examples of (5) in my previous post.

The following are all the instances of (1) in the Tenach:

Genesis 3:20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve,
wayyiqra' ha'adam shem-'ishto chawwah

Genesis 16:15 and Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.
wayyiqra' 'abram shem-beno 'asher yaledah hagar yisma''el

Genesis 21:3 And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him --
whom Sarah bore to him -- Isaac.
wayyiqra' 'abraham 'et-shem-beno . . . yitschaq

Genesis 22:14 And Abraham called the name of that place,
The-LORD-Will-Provide;
wayyiqra' 'abraham shem-hammaqom hahu' YHWH-yir'eh

Genesis 32:30 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel
wayyiqra' ya'aqob shem-hammaqom peniy'el

Genesis 35:15 And Jacob called the name of the place
where God spoke with him,Bethel.
wayyiqra' ya'aqob 'et-shem-hammaqom . . . beyt-'el

Genesis 41:45 And Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphnath-Paaneah.
wayyiqra' par'oh shem-yosep tsapnat pa'neach

Genesis 41:51 Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh:
wayyiqra' yosep 'et-shem-habbekor menashsheh

Exodus 16:31 And the house of Israel called its name Manna.
wayyiqra' beyt-yisra'el 'et-shemo man

Numbers 13:16 And Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun, Joshua.
wayyiqra' moshe' lehoshea' ben-nun yehoshua'


The following is the sole instance of (2) in the Tenach:

1 Chronicles 4:9 and his mother called his name Jabez,
we'immo qar'ah shemo ya'bets


The following is the sole instance of (3) in the Tenach:

Exodus 35:30 the LORD has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri,
qara' YHWH beshem betsal'el ben 'uri


There are two instances of (4) in the Tenach:

Jeremiah 11:16 The LORD called your name, Green Olive Tree,
Lovely and of Good Fruit.
zayit ra'anan yep'eh perit-to'ar qara' YHWH shemek

Jeremiah 20:3 The LORD has not called your name Pashhur,
lo' pashchur qara' HYWH shemek

Conclusion:
For all instances of this expression in the Tenach (except Isa. 9:6[5]),
when X is named in the clause, X either immediately precedes or follows
the verb "qara'," and, when it follows, it intervenes between "qara'"
and ('et) shem Y. Your friend's proposed syntax of Isa. 9:6[5]
would be as follows:

wayyiqra' ('et) shem Y X Z

This is contrary to all other constructions of this expression in the
Tenach. Therefore, it is only reasonable to conclude that the Artscroll
Chumash and your friend are wrong (being motivated by theological bias,
not good grammar), and that the syntax of Isa. 9:6[5] should be according
to (5) as follows:

wayyiqra' ('et) shem Y Z [where Y is a pronoun suffix].

In this case, as in many similar cases, X, the subject of the verb,
is the pronoun implied in the conjugate form of the verb, and Z
is "Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Father of Eternity,
Prince of Peace."

Sincerely,
James D. Price

Genesis 35:8 So the name of it was called Allon Bachuth.
wayyiqra' shemo 'allon bakkuth

Genesis 38:29 Therefore his name was called Perez.
wayyiqra' shemo parets

Genesis 38:30 And his name was called Zerah.
wayyiqra' shemo zerah

Genesis 50:11 Therefore its name was called Abel Mizraim,
'al ken qara' shemah 'abel mitsrayim

Exodus 15:23 Therefore the name of it was called Marah.
'al ken qara' shemah marah

Numbers 21:3 So the name of that place was called Hormah.
wayyiqra' shem-hammaqom hormah

Joshua 5:9 Therefore the name of the place is called Gilgal
wayyiqra' shem-hammaqom hahu' gilgal

Joshua 7:26 Therefore the name of that place has been called the
Valley of Achor
'al ken qara' shem-hammaqom hahu' 'emeq 'akor