Manly Men (Gen 6:4)
Adam’s Aftermath
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4 Those were the manly men of way back when הֵ֧מָּה הַגִּבֹּרִ֛ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר מֵעוֹלָ֖ם
All right, I am kidding — a little bit. Today’s post is sponsored by the word גִּבּוֹר gibbor. It’s commonly translated “hero” (even in Modern Hebrew where “superheroes” are gibborei-al) but as HALOT points out it is in some sense an intensive form of גֶּ֫בֶר géver. What makes them say so? It’s the dot (called a dagesh) in the ב of גִּבּוֹר, the one that “doubles” the ב (hence the double -bb- of my transliteration).
שׁבר sh-b-r means “break” in the basic (Qal) Hebrew verb conjugation, but “shatter” in the intensive (Piel) conjugation, the one where the middle letter of the root has a dagesh. Let’s have a look at Psalm 29 so you can see these two forms in action:
Ps 29:5 the voice of the LORD breaks cedars;
the LORD shatters the cedars of Lebanon
ק֣וֹל יְ֭הוָה שֹׁבֵ֣ר אֲרָזִ֑ים
וַיְשַׁבֵּ֥ר יְ֝הוָ֗ה אֶת־אַרְזֵ֥י הַלְּבָנֽוֹן׃
You see the two Hebrew verbs in bold, and בּ with a dagesh in the second one.
In other words, these are not just male human beings (גברים is one of the words you might see on a bathroom door in Israel) but manly men, men who can do the verb גבר without breaking a sweat. Yes, there is such a verb, and we will see the waters of the Flood doing it four times when we read Genesis 7 as they get higher and higher. This verb does appear in the Piel two or three times as well, though only in quite late texts. It’s not as if regular גֶּ֫בֶר is related to the Qal form and our word to the Piel form.
⇥ See Lesson 15 of my Hebrew course for more on the Qal and Piel conjugations. ⇤
There are two other words in the Bible with this form, כִּנּוֹר kinnor ‘lyre’ (a violin in Modern Hebrew) and כִּיּוֹר kiyyor ‘basin’ (a sink in Modern Hebrew). These are just words, with no associated verbs or even other nouns to compare them with, except for כִּנֶּ֫רֶת, Kinnéret, the lake that Christians call the Sea of Galilee. So the idea that a noun can be made more intensive is not Hebrew grammar as we understand it today.
The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament is not the kind of book that jokes around, though. Might ancient Israelites have thought of a gibbor as a géver to the second power? I, for one, can’t rule that out. I was about to say we’d have another chance to think about this in a couple of years when we meet Nimrod (in Genesis 10). However, we must take at least a quick look at him now to decide what our text means by “those.”
It’s not the word itself (héimma) that’s the problem, despite the fact that it’s a bit archaic-sounding now. Modern Hebrew uses הם heim for “they” (and the 3rd-person pronouns, then and now, double as the adjectives that and those); but héimma is more common in Biblical Hebrew. What I’m asking is whether that footnote of ours is over yet.
As I’ve explained, the words “and afterwards too” begin a long footnote explaining that the Nephilim did not live only in mythological time but also later, when the Israelites encountered them on their way into Canaan. Here (in the NJPS translation) is what we’ll read about Nimrod:
Gen 10:8 Cush also begot Nimrod, who was the first man of might [ה֣וּא הֵחֵ֔ל לִֽהְי֥וֹת גִּבֹּ֖ר] on earth. 9 He was a mighty [גִבֹּֽר] hunter by the grace of the LORD; hence the saying, “Like Nimrod a mighty [גִּבּ֥וֹר] hunter by the grace of the LORD.”
It goes without saying that Nimrod was born after the Flood — 95 years after, according to a website I found that claims to have precise data about such things. If he was the first gibbor, the original manly man, then “those … heroes of old” are not the offspring of the marriages we read about in v. 2 but of the less regular, post-diluvian relationships that are described in the first half of v. 4.
That means that this is still continuing the footnote, and that just the first five words of v. 4, of 23 in total, constitute the parenthesis. (We scholars DO sometimes like to go overboard with our footnotes.) This more or less explains why v. 4 does not come before v. 3. The 120-year limitation on human life sounds as if it is reacting to something negative; perhaps the parenthesis, and certainly the footnote, are explaining to us what that negative thing was. More on that before the end of this post.
As for “way back when,” it’s not merely the rhyme that sent me in that direction. This phrase asher mei-olam is really the opposite of l’olam: from eternity, to eternity. I’ve translated לעולם in 3:22 and 6:3 as “forever” without commenting on it, but this time we’re going in the opposition direction. “To” eternity can certainly mean “from now on without end”; if the world was created at a moment in time, though, there is no eternity when you turn around to look at the past.
What there is is the moral equivalent of eternity: as far back as anyone can remember, deep in the mists of mythological time, what we call in English “time immemorial.” Whatever heroes we still have are not god-like. Unlike the “heroes of old,” they are people just like you and me.
the men with names אַנְשֵׁ֥י הַשֵּֽׁם׃
Having translated gibborim as “manly men,” I must point out that it’s a different word for “man” being used in this phrase: ish, used here in its construct plural form anshei.
⇥ See Lesson 13 of my Hebrew course to learn about the construct form, “Hebrew’s trailer hitch.” ⇤
I see that the “gender-sensitive” Contemporary Torah still translates this phrase with the words “the men of renown,” even though איש does not necessarily mean “a person of the male sex.” It does mean that if you contrast it with אשה isha ‘woman’, but it’s also, as we saw in v. 2, the word that contrast human beings with gods. The Contemporary Torah may have done this for the same reason I did: In English, man and woman are strong words; person is a weak word. More likely, from what I understand of their project, they were aware that gibborim are always male and translated anshei ha-shem, in apposition to the gibborim, accordingly.
They also, as you notice, translated שׁם shem ‘name’ as “renown.” That’s a perfectly good translation, in fact, a fairly standard one. But I’m taking the path blazed by my friend (and former student) Donald Antenen, who translates literally as “men of the Name.” All right, there’s nothing literal about that capital N. Read his explanation to find out more.
I think the phrase isn’t at all as mysterious as Donald takes it. What it’s saying, I believe, is that these are the men so heroic that we actually remember their names — unlike those of all the others who walked the earth in their time.
Want to know more about these heroes? I do too, but it seems we’ll have to wait until we reach Nimrod to find out anything else. In the meantime, our story takes a different turn and picks up speed. Next time, we’ll begin reading the real introduction to the Flood.