Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Judges 15:5 and "vineyards of olives" (כֶּ֥רֶם זָֽיִת)

In Judg 15:5, we read:

 

And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.

 

"Vineyards and olives" in the Hebrew reads ‎כֶּ֥רֶם זָֽיִת, literally "vineyards of olives."

 

While some believe that this phrase to be a later insertion to the text (e.g., George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges [ICC; New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1910], 341), it is understood in TDOT that this phrase denotes olives being grown in a vineyard, commensurate with what one finds in Jacob 5:

 

Metonymy is involved when Heb. (and Ugar.) kerem (krm) is used in the general sense of “planting”—possibly in kerem zayiṯ, “olive orchard” (Jgs. 15:5 [textually problematic]), and with more likelihood in the diminutive karmel I, “orchard.” (H. -P. Müller, “כֶּרֶם,” Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, ed. G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans], 7:320)

 

For more, see:

 

John A. Tvedtnes on Jacob 5 and Olive Trees Being Said to Grow in a "Vineyard"