Sefer ha-Bahir 71-74 -- the hidden king, the pearl, and tzedek
Sefer ha-Bahir · The Book of Brilliance
ספר הבהיר · עא-עד
canonical late 12th c., Provence (ascribed to the 1st c. tanna) Hebrew Anonymous (attributed to Rabbi Nehunya ben ha-Kanah) tr. Hekhal Targum Project (machine-assisted draft; pending scholarly review)
Habakkuk’s prayer, and the turn to judgment. The hidden king who forbids being sought, so the seeker fears (§ 71); the pearl — the delight of the kingdom, more precious than the angels — that gives birth to the years (§ 72); the “day” that is evening and morning, not the sun’s (§ 73); and the skies that “pour down righteousness,” tzedek read as the attribute of judgment: “judge yourself and live, or He will judge over you” (§ 74).
A provisional scholarly draft, released openly for correction and not yet reviewed by a credentialed editor. The Hebrew is reproduced verbatim (with two flagged citation slips in the text — § 72’s Genesis 1:15 for a verse at 1:16, and § 73’s corrupt Isaiah numeral for 43:5); the standard modern English translation (Kaplan, 1979) is under copyright.
וכן אמר חבקוק תפלתי ידעתי שנתקבלה בתענוג, גם אני התענגתי וכשהגעתי למקום פלוני והבנתי שמעך יראתי, על כן (חבקוק שם) הן פעלך בקרב שנים חייהו, ביחודך, משל למה”ד למלך אמון מופלא ומכוסה שנכנס לביתו וצוה בל יבקשו עליו, על כן המבקש יפחד פן ידע המלך שהוא עובר על מצותו, ולכך אמר יראתי, ה’ פעלך בקרב שנים חייהו כך אמר חבקוק הואיל ושמך כך ובך שמך פעלך בקרב שנים חייהו, כן יהיה לעד:
And so Habakkuk said: I knew that my prayer was accepted with delight, and I too took delight; and when I reached a certain place and understood, ‘I heard Your report, I feared.’ Therefore (Habakkuk 3:2), ‘Your work, in the midst of the years revive it’ — in Your unity. A parable: to what is it comparable? To a wondrous and hidden king (melekh amon) who entered his house and commanded that they not seek [after] him; therefore whoever seeks is afraid, lest the king know that he transgresses his command. And therefore he said ‘I feared.’ ‘O LORD, Your work, in the midst of the years revive it’ — thus said Habakkuk: since Your name is thus, and in You is Your name, [may] ‘Your work in the midst of the years revive it’ — so may it be forever.
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
ד”א פעלך בקרב שנים חייהו משל למה”ד למלך שהיה לו מרגלית טובה והיא חמדת מלכותו ובעת שמחתו מחבקה ומנשקה ושמה על ראשו ואוהב אותה, אמר חבקוק אע”פ שהמלאכים. עמך, אותה המרגלית חמדה היא בעולמך, על כן בקרב שנים חייהו, מאי משמע לישנא דשנים, שנאמר (בראשית א’ ג) ויאמר אלהים יהי אור, ואין אור אלא יום דכתיב (שם טו) את המאור הגדול לממשלת היום ואת המאור הקטן לממשלת הלילה, והשנים הם מימים הה”ד (חבקוק שם) בקרב שנים חייהו, בקרב אותה המרגלית המולידה את השנים:
Another interpretation: ‘Your work in the midst of the years revive it.’ A parable: to what is it comparable? To a king who had a good pearl (margalit), and it was the delight of his kingdom; and in the time of his joy he embraces it and kisses it and sets it upon his head and loves it. Habakkuk said: even though the angels are with You, that pearl is the delight in Your world; therefore, ‘in the midst of the years revive it.’ What is implied by the term ‘years (shanim)’? As it is said (Genesis 1:3), ‘and God said, let there be light’; and ‘light’ is nothing but day, as it is written (Genesis 1:15 in the source; the verse is at 1:16), ‘the great luminary for the rule of the day, and the small luminary for the rule of the night’; and the years are of days. This is what is written (Habakkuk, ibid.), ‘in the midst of the years revive it’ — in the midst of that pearl which gives birth to the years.
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
והכתיב (ישעי’ מ”נ ה) ממזרח אביא זרעך, והשמש זורחת במזרח, ואמרת שהמרגלית היא יום, אני לא אמרתי אלא (בראשית א’ ה) ויהי ערב ויהי בקר יום, הה”ד (שם ב’ ד) ביום עשות ה’ אלהים ארץ ושמים:
But it is written (Isaiah 43:5; the source’s chapter numeral here is corrupt), ‘from the east I will bring your seed,’ and the sun shines in the east, and you said that the pearl is day! I did not say [that], but (Genesis 1:5), ‘and there was evening and there was morning, day.’ This is what is written (ibid. 2:4), ‘in the day the LORD God made earth and heaven.‘
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
והכתיב (תהלים י”ח יב) ישת חשך סתרו סביבותיו סוכתו חשכת מים עבי שחקים, א”ל כתיב ביה (ישעי’ מ”ה ח) ושחקים יזלו צדק, וצדק זה מדת הדין של עולם שנאמר (דברים טז כ) צדק צדק תרדוף וכתיב בתריה (שם) למען תחיה וירשת את הארץ, אם תדין עצמך תחיה, ואם לאו הוא ידין עליך ותתקיים בעל כרחך:
But it is written (Psalm 18:12), ‘He makes darkness His hiding-place around Him, His pavilion the darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.’ He said to him: it is written of it (Isaiah 45:8), ‘and the skies shall pour down righteousness (tzedek),’ and this tzedek is the attribute of judgment (midat ha-din) of the world, as it is said (Deuteronomy 16:20), ‘justice, justice you shall pursue (tzedek tzedek tirdof),’ and it is written after it (ibid.), ‘so that you may live and inherit the land.’ If you judge yourself, you shall live; and if not, He will judge over you, and you will be established against your will.
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
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This edition sets the verbatim Hebrew beside a fresh English rendering and a critical apparatus: a running commentary on the passage, notes on the controlled vocabulary and the rendering chosen for each term, and cross-references to the lexicon and to related sections. It is a provisional scholarly draft, released openly for correction and not yet reviewed by a credentialed editor.
Controlled terms noted in this passage: tzedek (rendered as justice). For each, the apparatus carries the sense set and the reason for the rendering chosen.
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the hidden king and the fear
Habakkuk’s fear (§§ 68-70) is now explained: the Holy One is a ‘wondrous and hidden king (melekh amon)’ who, entering his house, forbids being sought after; so whoever seeks is afraid lest he transgress by the very seeking. The prayer ‘Your work, in the midst of the years, revive it’ is offered ‘in Your unity.’ Sod: the reverence and peril before the concealed Godhead — the seeking that is itself perilous (cf. ‘Ben Zoma is outside,’ § 63).
the pearl that gives birth to the years
’In the midst of the years revive it’: the ‘pearl (margalit)’ — the delight of the king’s kingdom, which in his joy he embraces, kisses, and sets upon his head — is more precious than the angels; and the ‘years (shanim)’ are of ‘days,’ of light (Genesis 1). The pearl ‘gives birth to the years.’ Sod: the pearl is the Shekhinah, the delight the King crowns Himself with, the source of the days and times below.
the pearl and the day
A clarification: the pearl is not ‘day’ in the sense of the sun rising in the east (Isaiah 43:5), but the ‘day’ of Genesis 1:5 — ‘and there was evening and there was morning, day’ — and of Genesis 2:4, the day that includes its own night. Sod: the Shekhinah as the day that contains evening and morning, the full measure rather than the daylit half.
tzedek, the attribute of judgment
Against ‘He makes darkness His hiding-place’ (Psalm 18:12), the answer: ‘the skies pour down righteousness (tzedek)’ (Isaiah 45:8), and ‘this tzedek is the attribute of judgment (midat ha-din) of the world’ — ‘justice, justice you shall pursue’ (Deuteronomy 16:20), followed by ‘so that you may live.’ ‘If you judge yourself, you shall live; and if not, He will judge over you, and you will be established against your will.’ Sod: tzedek is the Shekhinah / Malkhut in her judging aspect — the same stern tzedek that in the next section ‘terrifies the righteous’ (§ 75) — and self-judgment below forestalls the judgment from above.
tzedek
Selected sense: justice
Active senses: justice, righteousness, tzedek-the-shekhinah
Rationale: Tzedek appears in the § 74 prooftexts (Isaiah 45:8 ‘the skies pour down righteousness’; Deuteronomy 16:20 ‘justice, justice you shall pursue’), rendered plainly ‘righteousness / justice.’ But the passage itself glosses it: ‘this tzedek is the attribute of judgment (midat ha-din) of the world’ — the sefirotic reading the frame hears, tzedek as the Shekhinah / Malkhut in her judging aspect (the same stern tzedek of § 75).
Lexicon: lexicon/tzedek
No public-domain translations indexed for this chunk.