Saturday, May 9, 2026

Robert Alter on Isaiah 32:19

  

And it shall come down as the forest comes down. This entire verse appears to be damaged beyond repair. The first word in the received text is barad, “hail” (though the vowel-points make it look like a verb), which makes no sense; it has been emended here in accordance with one Hebrew manuscript and two ancient versions to yarad, “shall come down,” which at least yields semantic parallelism in the line. Even so, it is unclear what is being said, and attempts to explain the line or recover an original version that lies behind it have been unavailing. (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 2:727)