So the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and swore an oath to him concerning this matter. – Genesis 24:9

Today’s Scripture Reading (June 9, 2015): Genesis 24

Bible translators sometimes talk about the “Giggle Principle” in translating the Bible. I think that we sometimes forget that time changes a lot of our understandings. Language, moral beliefs, cultural and societal expectations and much more all change as time progresses. What seemed normal in the past sometimes seems unthinkable in our current society. The “Giggle Principle” (and there are other names that this goes by) instructs the translator to be careful about anything that directly translated could cause people (especially younger people reading their Bibles) to giggle. These are things that are often so outlandish that we would consider the action almost impossible to imagine. Often these “Giggle” passages are concerned with the private parts of our body, or body functions that we just don’t speak of publically in polite society. Maybe one of the best known of these passages concerns the way translators have decided to translate Isaiah 64:6 which reads - All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away (NIV). The “Giggle Principle” comes into play with the translation of “filthy rags.” To be honest, filthy rags is a pretty common translation across a number of translations, but it is not what the Hebrew text actually says. To translate the passage more accurately it would read that “all our righteous acts are like dirty menstrual cloths.” I think the actual Hebrew phrase paints a more lasting image in our minds, but the “Giggle Principle” has consistently overruled the translator’s phrasings when they have worked on this passage.

Genesis 24:9 also seems to have consistently surrendered to the “Giggle Principle.” We are told that the act of placing a hand under a man’s thigh was a serious oath to take, and one that was not often taken, even in ancient times. But the seriousness of the oath is enhanced when we understand what the translators are not telling us. The person who was binding himself to someone and swearing an oath to undertake an action on behalf of the person to whom he was bound would not just place his hand under the thigh (which seems weird enough to us) but would actually touch the part of the body that bore the mark of circumcision, the physical sign of the covenant made with God. In doing so, the one binding himself was also symbolically promising God to undertake the task (this is really just a severe way of saying the phrase “… so help me God.”) Maybe it is my modern tendencies, but I can’t dream of taking an oath completed in this way lightly.

Abraham wanted his servant to go and find a wife for Isaac his son. But there were really two conditions. He did not want his son to marry one of the local Canaanite women, but he also did not want his son to be taken to the land of his ancestors. The servant was to go and find a woman and bring her back to place Abraham was living to marry Isaac. If this was possible, it was Abraham’s dream come true. If it was not possible, then the servant would be released from the oath. There was to be absolutely no alterations to plan – and Abraham could feel his servant’s oath swearing that this is how it would be done.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Genesis 25