לֵֽאלֹהִ֑ים

 Erev Tov 🌕🌟

    As I was preparing new material for my Biblical Hebrew curriculum earlier today, I came across this:

Jonah 3:3

"So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. And Nineveh was a very great city, a walk of three days."

    That's what our English Bibles say. But when I looked at the Hebrew, I saw that a whole word was omitted from the translation. This is what the Hebrew says (I am setting the missing word in bold type):

וַיָּקָם יוֹנָה וַיֵּלֶךְ אֶל־נִינְוֵה כִּדְבַר יְהוָה וְנִינְוֵה הָיְתָה עִיר־גְּדוֹלָה 

לֵאלֹהִים מַהֲלַךְ שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִ͏ים

    So this missing word in the English translation is Elohim, with a Lamed and Tsere as a prefix. This word as it stands means "for God" or "to God". 

    I looked at the few first mentions of this form of God's name in the Torah, and it seems to me to say "for (a) God".

    So, then, the correct rendition of this verse in English would be:

    "So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was a great city for / to God, a walk of three days."

    So, now the verse not only says the city was a great (presumably large) city, it indicates that in God's eyes, the people of the city were important, they meant something to him.

    This may have been one of the changes that the 70 Rabbis were forced to make in the Torah when they translated it to Greek under duress by order of Antiochus. I'm really not sure, and I don't even know how or where to check what these changes were. 

    However, having made this discovery, I am again strengthened in knowing that no matter who we are, where we live or what our background is, God can and does see through everything, right into our hearts. If He can have love, care and compassion for an entire city of Assyrian people - they were a really evil bunch - how much more can and does He have love and mercy, care and kindness towards us, whether we were born Jewish or non-Jewish, rich or poor, if we turn to Him and live a life that pleases Him.

I will be digging for treasure in the Torah as long as I have breath in my body.

Early Shabbat Shalom