"BORROW" OR "ASK OF"? Leonard Greenspoon, in "The Politics of Biblical Translation" (the Forward) meditates on the political effects of an old mistranslation in this week's Torah portion. (The Hebrew verb in question is sha'al, which means to ask or request.) Excerpts:

As the Israelites prepared to leave Egypt, the Hebrew text of Exodus 3:22 records one of the divine commands in words that the King James Version understood in this way: "But every woman shall borrow of her neighbor... jewels of silver, and jewels of gold." Through their actions, the Israelites "spoil" the Egyptians. The same or similar wording occurs twice in this week's Portion, at Exodus 11:2 and 12:35-6. Almost all English translations of the mid- and late 20th century have changed the wording in these passages, from "borrow" to "ask of" (or something similar). Among newer Jewish versions, in which "borrow" is sometimes retained, the alternate rendering is occasionally noted, but not discussed.

How different it was for earlier Jewish translators, especially those in England! The traditional King James rendering was perceived not only as erroneous, but as pernicious, dangerous, anti-Jewish.

[...]

What was at stake, in the view of these translators, was the sanctity of the text and the safety, perhaps even the survival, of their fellow Jews in a society where they still labored under many social and legal impediments. In the hands of their enemies, a shifty Jacob of the Bible could easily foreshadow a shiftless Jacob from London's East End, and Israelites who pretended to borrow from the Egyptians with no intention of repaying could become blood-sucking moneylenders.

We therefore may conclude that a fairly obscure biblical reference loomed larger than we might have expected for British Jews a hundred or more years ago. Beyond its value as a historical and cultural footnote, is this truly relevant to us today? Alas, it is. As reported by the media worldwide in 2003 � see the December 2003 edition of Bible Review, for example � an Egyptian jurist, relying on just these passages, was preparing a lawsuit against "all the Jews of the world," who, in his opinion, were responsible for absconding with the equivalent of more than 1,000 trillion tons of gold during the Exodus. This jurist apparently is willing to amortize this debt over a millennium, so long as cumulative interest is calculated and paid.

For those seeking to discredit the Book, or the People of the Book, there is no concept of a statute of limitations. Mistranslations continue to haunt us.