תום או מות?

מאת: אבנר רמו

In the Book of Deuteronomy we read: ויהי כאשר-תמו כל-אנשי המלחמה למות--מקרב העם - “So it came to pass, when all the men of war were consumed and dead from among the people” (Deu 2:16).

Yet one verse earlier we find: וגם יד-יהוה היתה בם להמם מקרב המחנה, עד תמם - “Moreover the hand of YHWH was against them, to discomfit them from the midst of the camp, until they were consumed” (Deu 2:15).

It is not clear how the English translator determined that here להמם (kehumam) means “to discomfit them.” The Greek translator wrote here “to eliminate them” which suggests that he believed that להמם (lehumam) is a letter-deletion error of להמתם (lehamitham) - “to kill them.” The comparison between these verses supports the Greek translator assumption.

Furthermore, logically the reading of: במדבר הזה יתמו, ושם ימתו - “in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die” (Num 14:35), suggests that it was originally written as: במדבר הזה ימתו, ושם יתמו - “in this wilderness they shall die, and there be no more.” This suggestion assumes that the current form of this verse resulted from a mirror-like metathesis in two similar-sounding words.