The Hebrew word shevet has six meanings, only one being a beating stick
Evidence
Meaning six. And only meaning six is what the English Bible most often translates shevet as in Proverbs: a stick to hit a person with. … So when the King James Version translates Proverbs 13:24 as he that spareth his rod hateth his son — the word rod is doing enormous work. It is collapsing six possible meanings into the narrowest, most violent one. It is taking a word that includes the king’s scepter, the prophet’s staff, the tribe of Judah, the shepherd’s crook, and the cosmic instrument by which God chastens nations — and rendering it as a stick a father uses to hit his kid. — , The Rod and the Child, 211
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the broader theme of how translation choices encode theological commitments — parallels the ‘translated into their belief’ insight from the Septuagint discussion and general translation-theory literature. — connects to: Medieval Jewish exegesis read Proverbs’ shevet as speech, not a literal rod — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 2597
- DEFINE: Clarifies the six meanings of shevet and the narrowest rendering that became dominant.