Text

,‫נגַׂש וְ הּוא ַנ ֲענֶה‬

,‫פיו‬-‫וְ ל ֹא יפְ תַ ח‬
;‫ּוכְ ָרחֵ ל לפְ נֵי גֹ ְזזֶיהָ ֶנ ֱאלָמָ ה‬,‫כַשֶ ה לַטֶ בַ ח יּובָ ל‬
.‫ פיו‬,‫וְ ל ֹא יפְ תַ ח‬

He’d been oppressed and abused,

yet he would not open his mouth;
like a lamb to the slaughter he’d been brought and like a ewe before
her shearers who is dumbstruck,
yet he would not open his mouth.
(KJV: He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a
lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.)

(Translation from the Greek: And he, because he has been ill-treated, does not open his mouth;
like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before the one shearing it, so he
does not open his mouth.)

Style
GENERAL

Verse 7 has a different style and cadence than we’ve seen before, and so it needs a bit of
explaining.

Previously, we saw that there were two complete thoughts broken into a quatrain of four
segments in total. And as we saw, the cadence was typically in the range of 7-9 beats per
segment.

In this version we have two identical phrases (segments 2 and 4) and a doublet metaphor set
between them which is almost double the length of any of the previous verses.
 He was oppressed and abused,
yet he would not open his mouth;
like a lamb to the slaughter he’d been brought and like a ewe before her shearers who is
dumbstruck;
yet he would not open his mouth.

As we see in the text above, the yellow lines, which are identical, are both preceded by the green
lines that speak of his abuse and submission, although not without some resistance as I will
explain in the word explanations below.

There is no rhyming or repeating of single words as with the others. Most of the verbs are
passive. And unlike the other verses, there is a complete segment that is an exact copy of
another.

Even in English, there is a nice feel to the repeat of phrase.

So let’s look at the cadence.

CADENCE

Here is the normal text with the number of syllables for each segment preceding it:

7 He’d been oppressed and abused

5 yet he would not open his mouth.
19 Like a lamb to the slaughter he’d been brought and like a ewe before her shearers who
is dumbstruck;
5 yet he would not open his mouth.

As you can see, segments 2 and 4 are the same, while the center segment is quite long. It has a
different feel, and the one verse focusing on silence has the longest segment to sing.

But let’s look at the meaning of the words.

Meanings
He’d been oppressed – The Hebrew word “‫ ”נגש‬is in the masculine passive past-tense form.
We see it in 1Sam 13:6 and 1Sam 14:24, when the nation was distressed, trembling in fear about
the larger force of Philistines. We also see it in Isaiah 14:4, when it speaks about the oppression
that God will one day stop.
The Greek version reminds us that the person had been ill-treated. In either case, the subject
doesn’t like what is going on, is uncomfortable, and wants it to stop. This can be an experience
of oppression, harassment, abuse, persecution, distress, or any other related terms.

Strong’s #H5065 recommendations are acceptable.

and abused – To render this text literally, I would use “He’d been oppressed and he was
abused”. I chose to condense this to “He’d been oppressed and abused”, omitting the explicit
“he” while retaining the implicit one. It’s just a stylistic change and you can choose to expand
this sentence if you wish.

Strong’s #H1931 recommendations for “he” are acceptable, as well as much of #H6031 for
“abused”.

yet –The prefixing vav (“‫ )”ו‬can mean “and”, “or”, “but” or is sometimes not translated at all. It
connects two ideas. Where the ideas appear to contradict one another (“abuse” and “silent”)
“but” or “yet” are the best choices.

And that’s why I chose “yet”.

he would not open his mouth; – Because the sentence began in the perfect (past) tense,
and passive verb forms, I am treating the verbal expression of “will” (“to do” as in a future act)
as modal and translate it as “would”. He had the opportunity to open his mouth but chose not to
do so. Since this refers to being abused or tortured, it is very possible that “open his mouth” is an
expression for not complaining, condemning, or begging for relief.

Strong’s #H6605 recommendations for “open” are acceptable, as well as #H6310 for “mouth”.

like a lamb – As with verse 2, this verse is using a metaphor (with the “like” prefix) of a non-
human object to represent what the human subject had gone through. One can find a poetic
relationship between these two verses, where the former one speaks of him as practically a non-
entity that was unwanted, and this one where he has been abused and is submissive and silent.

A seh (‫ )שה‬is a masculine noun which indicates a young lamb or goat that has been designated as
one that will be slaughtered. The gender of the seh cannot be determined by the grammar, only
the designation.
A seh has no choice in the matter, and as I explained earlier, it may or may not be silent,
depending on how you want to view the 4th segment of this verse.

Strong’s #H7716 recommendations for “seh” are acceptable.

to the slaughter – The noun in the Masoretic text has a vowel indicator (patach) indicating
that the prefix of “‫( ”ה‬the) is to be assumed. This reduction of the letter “‫ ”ה‬in this way is quite
common, and it is reintroduced by how one pronounces the beginning of the noun. So I included
“the” since it is part of the construct. We also see this in Isaiah 34:2 and elsewhere.

The term can be an expression of killing an animal to prepare it for eating (Genesis 43:16, etc.)
sacrificing an animal, and it can also be used to speak of the massacring or killing humans
(Isaiah 34:2, etc). This noun is attached to seh, or “lamb.

Strong’s #H2874 recommendations for “slaughter” limit themselves to animal killing only.

he'd been brought – ‫ יובל‬is in the passive causative (hufal) form. As in “he will be
brought/led”. We also see this verb being used in Isaiah 18:7, which is worth comparing to the
form in use here. There, it begins with a future “In that time [to come]…”, and so the verb form
is read in the future tense. In contrast, because the passive verb yuval is part of an overall past-
tense verse, we typically read it as “he was brought/led” instead of “he will be brought/led”.

My decision to use “he’d been” instead of “he was” is stylistic because I wanted to differentiate
between a simple past tense and a passive form. You can use “he was” if it sounds better to your
ear. I am not fond of translations that render it in the present-tense form.

The “he” in this segment likely refers to the man, but another way of rendering it could be “like a
lamb who had been brought/led to slaughter” since the Hebrew word for “lamb” is also in the
masculine form, giving it a wide range of interpretations. I obviously prefer the interpretation
that I used in my translation.

In ancient times, a lamb was tied up before being slaughtered, and it would struggle against its
bonds, and this is the likely visual that was imagined by the author.

Strong’s #H2986 recommendations are acceptable.

and like a ewe – In a parallelism to “like a lamb” (masculine noun) we have “like a ewe”
(feminine noun) as another comparison metaphor. There are those who drop the “and”, but I
don’t see any real reason to do so. “Sheep” is also acceptable. I prefer “ewe” because it indicates
a feminine gender.

Strong’s #H7353 recommendations are acceptable.

before her shearers – “Shearer” is in the plural form with a feminine possessive suffix.
Strong’s #H1494 recommendations are acceptable.

who is dumbstruck – Literally the Hebrew word is “she is dumbstruck”. I simply replaced
the “she” with “who” to avoid being repetitious. I was tempted to drop the “who”, but rendering
it as “is dumbstruck” might give the impression that “he is dumbstruck” rather than “he is LIKE
a ewe who is dumbstruck.”

The verb form is passive (nifal) and being silent is her reaction to what is happening to her rather
than a choice. The root shares the meaning of being “bound”, which is a nice connection to the
previous metaphor of the lamb.

Strong’s #H481 recommendations are acceptable.

yet –The prefixing vav (“‫ )”ו‬can mean “and”, “or”, “but” or is sometimes not translated at all. It
connects two ideas. Where the ideas appear to contradict one another (“abuse” and “silent”)
“but” or “yet” are the best choices.

I decided to use the same translation that I used for the same phrase in the first segment in order
to make it easier to compare the two.

he would not open his mouth; – Because the sentence began in the perfect (past) tense,
and passive verb forms, I am treating the verbal expression of “will” (“to do” as in a future act)
as modal and translate it as “would”. He had the opportunity to open his mouth but chose not to
do so. Since this refers to being abused or tortured, it is very possible that “open his mouth” is an
expression for not complaining, condemning, or begging for relief.
Unlike the first instance of this phrase, the Dead Sea Scroll version of the text dropped the yud in
“he would not open”, making it “yet without opening his mouth”. It’s likely a scribal error.

Strong’s #H6605 recommendations for “open” are acceptable, as well as #H6310 for “mouth”.