Thursday, June 9, 2022

ברא being used of the acts of man

  

And Joshua answered them, If thou be a great people, then get thee up to the wood country, and cut down (ברא) for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the giants, if mount Ephraim be too narrow for thee (Josh 17:15)

 

But the mountain shall be thine; for it is a wood, and thou shalt cut it down (ברא): and the outgoings of it shall be thine: for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong. (Josh 17:18)

 

Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering, which I have commanded in my habitation; and honourest thy sons above me, to make (ברא) yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people? (1 Sam 2:29)

 

Also, thou son of man, appoint thee two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come: both twain shall come forth out of one land: and choose (ברא) thou a place, choose (ברא) it at the head of the way to the city. (Ezek 21:19 [Hebrew: v. 24])

 

And the company shall stone them with stones, and dispatch (ברא) them with their swords; they shall slay their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire. (Ezek 23:47)

 

With respect to 1 Sam 2:29, consider the following note:

 

The reading of the Hebrew text of 1 Samuel 2:29 has been challenged and other readings proposed, but it is interesting that the verb here appears just before mē-rē'shīt (“from the beginning of”), rendered “with the chiefest” in KJV, i.e., the same word that appears as be-rē'shīt (“in the beginning of”) in Genesis 1:1 with the root br'. (John A. Tvedtnes, “Chapter 9: Creatio Ex Nihilo,” in Joseph Smith and the Ancient World [unpublished])