Last October, I presented at the Bible Translation Conference in Dallas. My paper is now available for download/view: אַל־תִּשְׁכַּח as "Do Not Be Weary"?: Assessing Dahood's Ugaritic Proposal in Proverbs 4:5c.
Here's the abstract:
The prohibition אַל־תִּשְׁכַּח (“do not forget”) in the Hebrew text of Proverbs 4:5c does not have a direct object, and so some scholars consider this a syntactic problem requiring resolution. This paper examines and critiques a proposed solution by Mitchell J. Dahood, who argues that this occurrence of the Hebrew verb draws from a verbal root (ṯkḥ) found in a Ugaritic text and who translates Proverbs 4:5c as “do not become weary.”
We present five arguments in support of the traditional translation “forget not,” demonstrating that the prohibition in Proverbs 4:5c without an explicit direct object poses no exegetical problem. The translator-exegete need not resolve a supposed dilemma in the Hebrew text by proposing an analogy with Ugaritic texts. Even were the translator compelled to search the Ugaritic corpus for parallels to this verb, the Ugaritic text proposed by Dahood does not manifest a reliable interpretative base from which to confidently posit any direct linguistic connection to the Proverbs passage. Additionally, Dahood’s proposed definition of the Ugaritic verb ṯkḥ as “to wilt” does not seem justified in the Ugaritic texts themselves nor in Proverbs 4:5c. Perhaps most convincingly, the verb תִּשְׁכַּח in Proverbs 4:5 makes adequate, contextual sense with the normal meaning “to forget.” Using Ockham’s razor, then, we consider it wise to retain this meaning rather than emend it based on a speculative Ugaritic connection.
