히브리어 고대 시가의 번역 : ‘모세의 축복’의 서두(신 33:2-3)

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In many cultures, old traditions and memories are often transmitted in the form of hymns and songs. It is the same in the Old Testament. The oldest records in the Old Testament are mainly songs, which are usually referred to as ancient Hebrew poetry. These include the Blessing of Jacob (Gen 49), the Song of Moses (Exo 15), the Prophecies of Balaam (Num 23-24), the Blessing of Moses (Deu 33), the Song of Deborah (Jdg 5), the Song of Habakkuk (Hab 3), 2 Samuel 22 (= Psa 18), and Psalms 68.BR Translating these ancient Hebrew songs is a difficult and challenging task. There are several reasons for this. First of all, since these songs are very old, it is not easy to restore or reconstruct the contents of the original text where the text is seriously damaged. There are also cases where the classical Hebrew grammar and spelling, which we are familiar with, do not apply to these poems. These early forms of Hebrew should be understood through comparison with other Semitic languages such as Akkadian, Ugaritic, and Hebrew inscriptions.BR Ancient Hebrew poetry has linguistic features that are not found in the classical biblical Hebrew. For example, (1) t-prefixed form is used instead of y-prefixed form for an imperfect third person plural; (2) the frequent use of the so-called nun energicum in all imperfect forms; (3) תי is used for a perfect second person feminine singular; (4) the use of enclitic ט (mem); and (4) the disappearance of the nota accusativi –ta.BR Apart from the difficulty of translation, there is another important reason to study ancient Hebrew poetry. Since these poems are from the earliest period of Israel, they preserve the information about the early traditions of the origin and development of the religion of Israel and the faith of Yahwism.BR This study attempts to translate introductory part of the so-called “Blessing of Moses” (Deu 33:2-3). The result of this study reconstructs verses 2 and 3 as three stanzas of three lines each (2a, 2b, 2c/2d, 2e, 3a/3b, 3c, 3d).BR The most divergent part of my translation is that it sees the “holy ones” in 3b as heavenly beings whereas other previous Korean versions translate it as “the faithful.”BR This study further requires the translation of the main body of the Blessing of Moses as well as of other ancient Hebrew songs.