Want More? Hebrew in the Book of Mormon

Some of my students have been interested in Hebrew phrases found in the Book of Mormon.  Here are few short segments from an article by John A. Tvedtnes.

You can read this whole article at https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/hebrew-background-book-mormon

2 examples:

Construct State

When English shows a possessive or descriptive relationship between two nouns, it usually puts the possessive or descriptive noun first: the king’s house or wood house. Hebrew, however, uses the opposite order: house the king (which would usually be translated house of the king) or house wood(house of wood). If the Hebrew word order is kept in the English translation, the word of must be added, even though it does not exist in the Hebrew.

The Book of Mormon contains a large number of what appear to be translations from the Hebrew preserving the Hebrew word order:

“plates of brass” instead of brass plates (1 Nephi 3:24)

“works of righteousness” instead of righteous works (Alma 5:16)

“words of plainness” instead of plain words (Jacob 4:14)

“chains of hell” instead of hell’s chains (Alma 5:7)

“voice of the Spirit” instead of the Spirit’s voice(1 Nephi 4:18)

“skin of blackness” instead of black skin (2 Nephi 5:21)

“night of darkness” instead of dark night (Alma 34:33)

“rod of iron” instead of iron rod (1 Nephi 8:19)

The Hebrew-like expression land of promise appears twenty-two times in the Book of Mormon, while promised land (common in English) is found only ten times.

Cognates

Cognates are related words that come from the same root. For example, the English noun student is cognate to the verb study and the adjective studious. In Hebrew, a verb is sometimes followed by a noun that is a cognate, such as “wrote upon it a writing” (Exodus 39:30) and “she vowed a vow” (1 Samuel 1:11). In English, cognates are used much less often. Using such cognates is often considered an awkward or inelegant style in English. Someone writing in English would be more likely to use “she vowed” or “she made a vow.” Even in translation from the Hebrew, the King James Bible sometimes avoids using cognates. In Genesis 1:11, a literal translation of the Hebrew would be “Let the earth grass grass,” but the English translation reads “Let the earth bring forth grass.”

The Book of Mormon uses cognates much more often than we would expect if the book had originally been written in English. These cognates show the Hebrew influence of the original. One of the best-known examples is “I have dreamed a dream” (1 Nephi 8:2). That is exactly the way that the same idea is expressed in literal translation of the Old Testament Hebrew (see Genesis 37:5; 41:11).

Here are some other examples of the use of cognates in the Book of Mormon, each followed by the more normal expression for English:

“work all manner of fine work” (Mosiah 11:10) instead of work well

“and he did judge righteous judgments” (Mosiah 29:43) instead of judge righteously or make righteous judgments

“build buildings” (2 Nephi 5:15; Mosiah 23:5) instead of erect buildings or simply build

“this was the desire which I desired of him” (Enos 1:13) instead of what I desired

“I will work a great and a marvelous work” (1 Nephi 14:7) instead of perform a great and marvelous work

“taxed with a tax” (Mosiah 7:15) instead of taxed

“cursed with a sore cursing ” (2 Nephi 1:22; Jacob 3:3) instead of cursed sorely