on account of; concerning: a connecting word that points to the reason for something, the subject a matter is about, or the person an action is done for
This is a small connecting word that almost never stands on its own. It survives only inside a fixed phrase best translated "on account of," "concerning," or "for the sake of." Scholars class it as a noun meaning roughly "cause" or "matter," but in practice it works like a preposition: it links an action or a statement to whatever it is really about.
The phrase covers a narrow but real range:
- when it gives the reason for something, it means "because of"
- when it names the subject of speech or a dispute, it means "concerning" or "about"
- when it points to the person who benefits, it means "for the sake of"
The meaning is unusually stable. In every place it appears a reader can tell the sense from the surrounding words, and the ancient translators had no trouble with it. What makes the word interesting is quieter: it belongs only to the older, classical style of Hebrew narrative and drops out entirely of the latest books of the Old Testament, where writers reached for plainer substitutes, such as a phrase built on the everyday word for "matter" (דָּבָר) or the ordinary words for "because of" (גָּלָל) and "for the sake of" (עֲבוּר).
Where the word originally came from is unknown. The old guess is that it once meant "turnings" and slid from there to "circumstances" and then to "on account of," a path a few other languages took as well, but the evidence is thin and its origin is best left an open question.
Nuances
Whether the phrase at Numbers 12:1 reports the actual cause of Miriam and Aaron's complaint against Moses or only its ostensible topic. The verse grounds their speaking against Moses in the Cushite woman he had married; verse 2 then voices resentment over prophetic standing, raising the question whether the marriage was the trigger or a pretext.
- contestedThe phrase names only the ostensible topic; the marriage is a pretext, and the real grievance is rivalry over prophetic authority.; Baruch A. Levine, Numbers 1-20 (Anchor Bible 4A, 1993), ad loc.
- contestedThe phrase names the actual cause; the marriage really was the trigger, whatever further resentments lay beneath it.; Jacob Milgrom, Numbers (JPS Torah Commentary, 1990), ad loc.; Timothy R. Ashley, The Book of Numbers (NICOT, 1993), ad loc.
Whether the short unit at Judges 6:7 through 10, which contains this phrase, belongs to the original book. Those verses are absent from the Qumran manuscript 4QJudges-a, which moves directly from verse 6 to verse 11.
- contestedThe unit is a secondary insertion, absent from the earlier form of the text preserved in the scroll.; Eugene Ulrich et al., eds., Qumran Cave 4.IX (DJD 14, 1995); Julio Trebolle Barrera, Textual Variants in 4QJudges-a and the Textual and Editorial History of the Book of Judges, in The Madrid Qumran Congress (Brill, 1992), 1:229-45
- contestedThe scroll's shorter text does not establish a shorter original; the passage is not shown to be a later addition.; Natalio Fernandez Marcos, ed., Iudices (Biblia Hebraica Quinta 7, 2011); Richard S. Hess, The Dating of the Book of Judges: Some Methodological Reflections, in Israel: Ancient Kingdom or Late Invention? (B&H, 2008)
Whether the Hebrew text of 2 Samuel 13:16 is sound. The traditional text begins Tamar's reply to Amnon with a negative particle nearly identical in spelling to the preposition read elsewhere, which most critical scholars regard as a copying error.
- majorityThe received text is corrupt; following the Lucianic Greek and the Old Latin, the line should read "No, my brother, for..." rather than a phrase built on this word.; Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), s.v., citing Wellhausen and S. R. Driver; P. Kyle McCarter Jr., II Samuel (Anchor Bible 9, 1984), ad loc.
- minorityThe received text stands as an unfinished sentence, with Tamar breaking off in her distress.; David Toshio Tsumura, The Second Book of Samuel (NICOT, 2019), ad 13:16