Davage’s translation of Isa 8:1-2:
And
YHWH said to me:
“Take a large cutting of papyrus
and write on it with a red pen:
‘Concerning Maher-shalal-hush-baz,’
and I will take as reliable witnesses
Uriah the priest
and Zechariah, son of Jeberechiah.” (David Davage, How Isaiah Became an
Author: Prophecy, Authority, and Attribution [Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2022], 86)
Comments on גליון:
Although
the verse mentions writing, the specifics are quite uncertain. For one, the
vocabulary surrounding the writing material and tools are unclear. It is
regularly suggested that גליון refers not to a scroll but some kind of stone or
metal surface. It is only used twice in the Hebrew Bible, the second time in
Isa 3:23, where it is listed among garments of the daughters of Zion. There, it
is perhaps to be translated as “mirror,” hence indicating some kind of
reflective surface. This would be reasonable in light of the meanings of the
root of the word גלה: “to reveal.” The root also means “to remove” and “to
exile,” however, and when reading the verse in relation to the papyrus culture
in which it belongs, a case has been made to understand גליון as a
“cutting”_-that is, a piece removed from a supply roll. Hence the translation
“cutting of papyrus” above. Such an understanding then also casts light on the
“man’s stylus” (חֶרֶט אֱנוֹשׁ). As regularly noted, it is not straightforward
what the notion of “man” indicates. Is it just a way of saying a “common
stylus”; should it be amended to “a stylus of sickness” (חרט אָנוּשׁ)—that is, a
stylus that writes disaster; or is it a stylus with “indelible script” (חרט אָנוּשׁ).
If related once again to scribal habits in papyrus cultures, it has been
suggested that it refers to the second of two pens used by scribes, a red pen
often used to highlight passages. Last, the preposition ל could be translated
as both “concerning” and “[belonging] to.” (Ibid., 86-87)
