Translating assertive language in 1 Kings 12:10-11

It is not uncommon for male-on-male threats in any language to derive their smack from allusions to sexual organs or other private body parts. In a previous post, I introduced the subject by putting it against the background of the "gestured masculinity" of body-language involving the requisite parts of the anatomy. When allusions of this kind are found in the wording of a biblical text, is it to be preserved in translation? In the case of 1 Kings 12:10-11, recent translations in English have chosen rather often to emasculate the language of the original.

Here is the Hebrew and my own translation:

וַיְדַבְּרוּ אֵלָיו הַיְלָדִים אֲשֶׁר גָּדְלוּ אִתּוֹ לֵאמֹר

כֹּה־תֹאמַר לָעָם הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר דִּבְּרוּ אֵלֶיךָ לֵאמֹר

אָבִיךָ הִכְבִּיד אֶת־עֻלֵּנוּ

וְאַתָּה הָקֵל מֵעָלֵינוּ

כֹּה תְּדַבֵּר אֲלֵיהֶם

 

קָטָנִּי עָבָה מִמָּתְנֵי אָבִי

וְעַתָּה אָבִי הֶעְמִיס עֲלֵיכֶם עֹל כָּבֵד

וַאֲנִי אוֹסִיף עַל־עֻלְּכֶם

אָבִי יִסַּר אֶתְכֶם בַּשּׁוֹטִים

וַאֲנִי אֲיַסֵּר אֶתְכֶם בָּעַקְרַבִּים

The lads he grew up with stipulated to him:

“Tell the people who stipulated to you:

‘Your father made our yoke heavy:

you make it lighter for us,’

- you stipulate to them:

 

‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s pride and joy.

Get this: my father burdened you with a heavy yoke.

I will make your yoke heavier still.

My father educated you with the lash.

I will educate you with a barbed lash.’

The text bristles with examples of pregnant language. Space does not permit a full discussion. On the one hand, as most translations and commentaries understand, קטני refers to Rehoboam’s “little finger.” This is within the same semantic frame (the “literal” plane) in which מתני אבי refers to his father’s “thighs.” On the other hand, the purport of the anatomical terms is another. They have another sense on a metaphorical plane. The semantic transfers on the metaphorical plane involve not only “little finger,” but “thighs” and “thick.” “Thighs” is stand-in language for a man”s “pride and joy,” as I playfully translate above. The language is double-deckered. Rehoboam is to tell his subjects that his pinkie has a larger circumference than his Dad’s thighs. That is a colorful way of saying that his pecker is a lot bigger than his Dad’s pecker.

Body-contact language hovers in the background.

As Driessen put it in reference to assertive male gestures in rural Andalusia (see previous post), “[the body-contact language] communicate[s] a man’s strength and test[s] the other man’s toughness, how much he can take, and whether he is able to control himself.”

Mordechai Cogan observes with respect to קטני ‘my little finger’ (the probable literal sense; cf. Jerome’s mimimus digitus meus, an interpretation he may have gleaned from the “native speakers” (= Jewish consultants) he relied on): “Qimhi, with a feel for the manly talk among Rehoboam’s companions, took it for the penis.” He adds: “The use of a rude expression would have been appropriate in the setting of a private audience of the ‘youngsters’ [הילדים] with the King (Noth); in the following meeting with the Northerners, Rehoboam astutely omits repeating these insulting words (Weisman 1996, 214-15).”

Iain Provan in the ESVSB comes to similar conclusions: “My little finger is thicker than my father’s thighs. The foolish advice of the younger men to Rehoboam is literally in Hebrew “my little one is thicker than my father’s thighs,” most likely a reference to his sexual organ rather than a literal finger [to the contrary, I have argued that the reference is double-deckered, and refers to both]. Power and sexual potency were very much connected in the ancient Near East (see ch. 1[:2-4; and Provan’s note there].”

Translations known for their commitment to dynamic or functional equivalence, such as CEV and NCV, reduce the metaphorical language to a limp and colorless abstraction. CEV: “Compared to me, my father was weak.” This is unfaithful to the source text's register and style. At least there is a footnote: "Hebrew 'My little finger is bigger than my father’s waist.' " But that is inexact. It’s “thicker,” not “bigger,” and “thighs” (stand-in language for the male member), not “waist.”   “Waist” doesn’t work as stand-in language for the you-know-what.

On the other hand, more literal translations such as ESV (see above) and (T)NIV (“my little finger is thicker than my father’s waist”) are also unintelligible. That is, the double-deckered reference across the semantic whole will not and cannot be grasped without explanation.

In some ways, it is hard to improve on the traditional, more or less verbatim rendering found, for example, in KJV: “My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins.” “Loins” is Biblish, of course, for “thighs.” The equivalents in biblical Hebrew often have sexual and/or virile connotations – assuming the two kinds of connotations can be separated. Thus it is that we hear of “seventy souls” issuing from the “thighs of Jacob” (Exodus 1:5). Thus it is that we hear of people “girding their loins” – not their waist, but their thighs. That phrase, too, though it has a vanilla-plain overt reference, has sexual overtones in terms of assertiveness.

In a concluding post, I will take a look at Targum Jonathan’s rendering of this passage. I will explain why it cannot be cited, despite appearances, as an example of a CEV style translation ante litteram.

Bibliography

Mordechai Cogan, 1 Kings: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 10; New York: Doubleday, 2000); Martin Noth, Könige I (BKAT; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1968); Ze'ev Weisman, Political Satire in the Bible (Hebrew; Jerusalem: Bialik, 1996; ET Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998)

Comments

[Bob MacDonald]

What is funny to me is how tame and lame the polite translations are! As I have commented so often at BBB - probably I am in bad odour everywhere - lame English does not improve on Biblish

[gginat]

Just as likely, R's little thing is thicker than his Dad's thighs..

[JohnFH]

gginat,

It's hard to tell. I took it the way I did on the assumption that there is violent body-contact alluded to, in the case of the father and the son.

As one might say in English, my Dad screwed you royally. I will do the same, only more so.

[Will Conrad]

I take it that your reasoning is sound and accords with the tenor of young men. However, I differ with your conclusion that Rehoboam curtailed his response to the ten tribes lest he insult them. Does he not do this in his other comments? Rather I believe Rehoboam respected his father too highly to insult his memory in such a way, although it remains true that Rehoboam fathered more children than Solomon if the Bible records the testimony correctly.

[JohnFH]

Interesting reflections, Will. Thanks for dropping by.