Notes: Isaiah 53:2

NOTES n. ISAIAH I27 53:2 In an essay entitled ' "Roots Below and Fruit Above" and Related Matters', H. L. Ginsberg has argued cogently that Vljfri is not to be understood solely as the 'root' of a plant or tree, but also as its stock or stem.1 The purpose of this note is to apply Ginsberg's insight to Isaiah 53:2 where the word is commonly rendered 'root' in English translations. Many commentators accept this without question (e.g. Lindblom, Torrey, Westermann), others prefer 'root-sprout' (e.g. Delitzsch, Dillmann, Minn, Wolff), while C. R. North has recently offered 'For he shot up like a sapling, as from a root in an arid soil' .2 Although 'root-sprout', conveying the idea of a new growth from the ground, gives a better sense than 'root', avoiding so forced an explanation as 'the root from the dry ground is the scrub growth of the desert' (J. L. McKenzie, cf. R. Levy), 'stock' or 'stem' would seem to improve upon that. The picture, then, is of a weak plant, 'a stem from dry soil' parallel with 'tender plant, .sapling'. Isaiah 11: I, I o, may be translated conformably, as Ginsberg has partly shown. A. R. MILLARD 1 D. Winton Thomas, W. D. McHardy, eds, Hebrew and Semitic Studies Presented to G. R. Driver, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1963) 72-76. 8 The Second Isaiah, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1964) 64; if. N. H. Snaith, VT SueJ>lement 14 (1967) 194; North followed the common translation in The Slfllering Servant in Deuterv-Isaiah8, Oxford University Press (1956) 121. https://tyndalebulletin.org/