The Humans are Dismissed (Gen 3:23)

You Can’t Go Home Again

²³ So YHWH God dismissed them from the Garden of Xanadu.

 וַֽיְשַׁלְּחֵ֛הוּ יְ׳הוָ֥ה אֱלֹהִ֖ים מִגַּן־עֵ֑דֶן

Long-time readers know that I like quoting the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, because I find their tendency to divide words into multiple shades of meaning a little bit over-the-top. I can’t resist that temptation today, because the first word in this verse is a verb with a fascinating range of meanings — 23 of them according to DCH. It’s the verb שׁלח sh-l-ḥ.

What YHWH was afraid of in v. 22 was that they would “reach out [יִשְׁלַ֣ח יָד֗וֹ].” Now he responds by doing the same verb. But there’s a clever twist. And, yes, you have to understand something about the Hebrew verb patterns called binyanim to know what it’s all about. (See Lesson 15 of my Hebrew course for details on that subject; do watch the little commercial if you’re still dubious about taking the course.)

Students of Biblical Hebrew, for some reason, love to translate the root שׁלח as “send,” which is indeed what it means in the Qal (unmarked) binyan, the most basic pattern. But in the “intensive” binyan, Piel, שׁלח has a much wider range of meanings:

• 1a. let go, set free, let escape, give leave to a person; let run children loose

  1b. let go, let loose, release animal

• 2. send away, drive away, cause to go into exile, expel, excommunicate a person, divorce wife, marry off daughter; banish person; chase away feet,

• 3a. send off, send one on one’s way

  3b. send (back) home

• 4. send person with a task, commission

• 5. let down, lower a person

• 6. deliver a person to punishment

• 7. set, turn one person against another

• 8. send, cause to be brought object

• 9. send, shoot arrow

• 10. of Y., send as punishment

• 11. of Y., send spirit

• 12. send forth lightning

• 13. send down, bring down, cast down a thing

• 14a. let loose bridle

  14b. let hang loose hair

  14c. of Y., release water, make gush forth springs

  14d. release, give birth to one’s young

  14e. unleash anger

• 15a. express, convey, reveal good, evil

  15b. cause to be conveyed commandment

• 16. drive away, remove stubbornness

• 17. reject temple

• 18. set on fire

• 19. incite strife

• 20a. of tree, shoot branches, roots

  20b. of person, let grow long hair

• 21. as qal, stretch out hand

• 22. cause to spread out

• 23. inf. as noun, sending away (one’s wife), divorce

The basic difference between the Qal and Piel meanings is that in the Qal you are indeed “sending” something from one place to another, just as we use the English verb. In the Piel, you are making sure that a person goes away. (Less commonly, it is an animal or bird, and even less commonly something theoretically inanimate but destructive.) You can do this in a positive or negative way.