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--- kel [2025/03/05 18:20] – created ken
+++ kel [2025/03/05 18:45] (current) – ken
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 'kel' means "all".
-Traditionally, a few instances have been notable misconstrued, by replacing the correct meaning somewaht arbitrarily with "Daughter-in-law". An example of this is Leviticus 20:12. Here the traditional interpretation appears as a prohibition against having sex with one daughter-in-law. A reasonable expectation to be sure, but apparently quite different from the original intent which reads: "a person who has sex with //all//", ie. a sexually promiscuous person.
+Traditionally, a few instances have been notable misconstrued, by replacing the correct meaning somewhat arbitrarily with "Daughter-in-law". An example of this is Leviticus 20:12. This chapter ostensibly identifies certain types of sexual infidelity that should come with a death penalty. The traditional interpretation appears as a prohibition against having sex with one daughter-in-law. A reasonable expectation to be sure, but apparently quite different from the original intent which reads: "a person who has sex with //all//", ie. a sexually promiscuous person. This may have been an uncomfortable truth to certain powerful men in a patriarchal system. Perhaps they would be more comfortable with simply avoiding their son's wives.
+This "daughter-in-law" interpretation presented problems for the traditional translators when they came to the more erotic portions of Song Of Songs. Here they opted to tweak the interpretation further, throwing out "daughter in law" in favor of "spouse".
+Here, the psalmist writes of his lover:
+  *"You have ravished my heart"((Songs 4:9))
+  *"much better is your love than wine and the scent of your perfumes than all spices"((Songs4:10))
+  *"As the honeycomb drip Your lips. Honey and milk under your tongue and the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of cedar"((Songs 4:11))
+Obviously, if 'kel' is supposed to refer to ones daughter-in-law, this is quite problematic. But if we switch 'kel' to mean "spouse" then what happens when we apply the same algorithm to Leviticus 10? Suddenly, any man who has sex with his own wife must also be put to death.
+No. The writer of Song of Songs is not speaking to one particular woman, and certainly not his daughter in law. Using the well established meaning of 'kel' to mean "all" (as it consistently does in nearly six thousand other instances), it is clear that the writer is addressing "all women", or more generally, this song is an ode to the pleasures of sexuality and sexual experience, rather than an ode to a particular woman, and certainly not his daughter-in-law.