Havurato, not Habburato?

[Longfellow]

My AI friend has been walking me through Isaiah 53:5, and it seems that in every Hebrew manuscript, concordance, and scholarly discussion, the word is consistently vocalized as ḥăvurāto—from the root ח-ב-ר, meaning joining, association, fellowship.

There’s no dagesh in the bet, so it’s not ḥabburato (wound/stripe), and apparently no one has ever seriously argued otherwise.

Does anyone have any information about 'HBRTH' ever being pronounced anywhere as 'ḥabburato'?

 

[Longfellow]

After my last post, I learned that there aren't any scholars who don't agree that the Hebrew word in Isaiah 53:5 that is translated as "wounds" or "stripes" is "havurah" and not "habburah," and there aren't any scholars who think that "havurah" could ever possibly mean "stripes" or "wounds" or anything but words related to connection like "fellowship" or "group." If "havurah" could ever mean anything like "stripes" or "wounds," Strong's concordance would list those as possible meanings for it, and it doesn't.

 

[RabbiO]

Is there a reason you posted your query in the Christianity subforum instead of either the Judaism subforum or the more general Abrahamic Religions? I can only assume that you weren't interested in a Jewish perspective. I didn't see your posts because I don't do the internet on Shabbat.

I will admit, however, to a bit of curiosity as to how in the 12 hours between your initial post and your follow-up 12 hours later you were able to ascertain what every single scholar thinks about the language in Isaiah 53:5. I happen to be comfortable enough with my own translating, as well as the work of the Jewish scholars whom I trust to want to know some the works you consulted.

 

[Longfellow]

Is there a reason you posted your query in the Christianity subforum instead of either the Judaism subforum or the more general Abrahamic Religions? I can only assume that you weren't interested in a Jewish perspective. I didn't see your posts because I don't do the internet on Shabbat.

I will admit, however, to a bit of curiosity as to how in the 12 hours between your initial post and your follow-up 12 hours later you were able to ascertain what every single scholar thinks about the language in Isaiah 53:5. I happen to be comfortable enough with my own translating, as well as the work of the Jewish scholars whom I trust to want to know some the works you consulted.

Are you disagreeing something I said?

If you know of scholars who think that the Hebrew word in Isaiah 53:5 is “habburato,” or who think that “havurato” can mean “wounds,” “bruises,” or “stripes,” please name them, so I can go read what they say about it.

(later) I do retract my statement that there aren’t any scholars who think that the word in Isaiah 53:5 is “habburato.”Apparently there are some who argue that the plural form in Isaiah 53:5 in the Dead Sea Scrolls” makes “fellowship” in that case less likely, so maybe the absence of a dagesh is a softening of the bet in “habburato,” rather than the word actually being “havurato.”

 

[Longfellow]

If I’m understanding correctly, the argument from DSS is not that the word in Isaiah 53:5 is spelled “habburato,” and not that “havurato” can ever mean “wounds,” but that the word spelled “havurato” is not really havurato, but a form of habburato.

 

[Longfellow]

Is there a reason you posted your query in the Christianity subforum instead of either the Judaism subforum or the more general Abrahamic Religions? I can only assume that you weren't interested in a Jewish perspective. I didn't see your posts because I don't do the internet on Shabbat.

I will admit, however, to a bit of curiosity as to how in the 12 hours between your initial post and your follow-up 12 hours later you were able to ascertain what every single scholar thinks about the language in Isaiah 53:5. I happen to be comfortable enough with my own translating, as well as the work of the Jewish scholars whom I trust to want to know some the works you consulted.

I retract what I said, that no one is saying that the worrd is habburato. Looking deeper, it still looks to me like no one is questioning the vocalization havurato going far back in time, but it looks like mostly they think that it was originally habburato. Some are even saying that havurato could in this case be a way of vocalizing wounds etc.

 

[Aerist]

Well, I'm no Hebrew scholar, more of a chaver , but am reminded of blood brothers, which bridges the gap there, perhaps, etymologically. I suspect, though, that it wouldn't be Kosher! Google Gemini got a bit shirty when I asked if it had ever heard of such a thing. Another possibility might be that bands of brothers are those who fight on the same side. Or in the days of the temple, made sacrifice together.

 

[Longfellow]

My AI friend wrote this at my request, after a long conversation full of surprises for me:

I was there that day in Capernaum when he read from the prophet. Not in the synagogue, not that time. It was later, after a healing, I think—maybe Peter’s mother-in-law, maybe someone else. The sun was low and the lake kept folding light into itself.
Someone asked him what it meant, that old line—“by his ḥăvurāh we are healed.” And he just smiled, like it wasn’t a puzzle but a memory.

I remember flinching at the word. Ḥăvurāh. Wounds, of course—but something in the way he said it made me pause. Like he meant the bruising and the belonging. As if the pain didn’t disqualify us from each other—it joined us.
Later, when we started breaking bread more often, and the table kept getting longer, someone called us a ḥavurah. Not officially. Just in passing. But it stuck. Not because we were pious, or learned, or always kind. But because we had been wounded—and we stayed.

And now, when I hear Isaiah’s line, I don’t just think of what happened. I think of what held. The way one voice pronounced a word with just enough ache to make it bloom.