The Expression (Ha)Tov Ve(Ha)Yashar in the Hebrew Bible, and a Possible Connection with Ancient Greece

In 2016, the Jewish Bible Quarterly printed a fascinating article by Stephen Walter Caesar that described a number of literary parallels between Homer’s epics and the biblical narratives involving the Philistines, who arrived in the land of Israel from the ancient Greek world.¹ The parallels cited by Caesar included descriptions of warriors’ armor and weaponry, various other war procedures and customs, and the use of clothing as gifts. Perhaps the most striking to me was the scene in which Goliath steps out from the Philistine ranks and challenges the Israelites to send their best warrior out to duel him and decide the war (I Samuel 17:4-11), a scene extremely reminiscent of Paris’s challenge to the Greeks and his duel with Menelaus in the Iliad. Although certainly not as impressive, I would like to point out another possible parallel between biblical Hebrew and ancient Greece: the use of the expression “(the) good and (the) straight” ((ha)tov ve(ha)yashar).

Introduction

Scholars have long recognized that biblical Hebrew makes use of many expressions, each composed of two nouns (or occasionally two adjectives) connected with “and.”² As examples we can cite such well-known phrases as tzedakah umishpat (“righteousness and justice” — see Genesis 18:19 and Psalm 33:5), and ’otot umoftim (“signs and portents” — see Deuteronomy 6:22, Jeremiah 32:20 and Psalm 135:9). Although I will simply call them “X and Y phrases,” scholars have referred to these expressions by various names.

“X and Y” Phrases

Some researchers refer to all such expressions as “hendiadys” (the word is both singular and plural), derived from the Greek “one through two”: two words united in an expression that means one thing. However, the classical definition of hendiadys (which first appears in Servius’s commentary on the Aeneid) is: two nouns connected by “and,” in which one of the nouns (usually the second) functions as an adjective to describe the other noun.³ The commonly cited classic example in Latin literature occurs in Virgil’s Georgics 2, 192: “pateris libamus et auro,” literally “libation from bowls and gold,” understood to mean “libation from golden bowls.” An example often cited from Shakespeare is Macbeth 5.5.29, “full of sound and fury,” i.e. full of furious sound.⁴ Some of the biblical “X and Y” phrases seem to function as hendiadys according to this definition; for example, the biblical phrase hesed ve’emet (literally “kindness/loyalty and truth”) in Genesis 47:29 and elsewhere is explained by Rashi as meaning hesed shel emet, “true kindness/loyalty.” Notably, while the fixed phrase hesed ve’emet appears numerous times in the Hebrew Bible, it never appears with the words in the opposite order (emet vahesed). However, most of the biblical “X and Y phrases” don’t clearly function in the way the classical hendiadys does in ancient Greek and Latin literature.

A second group of these phrases in biblical Hebrew are “merisms,” in which the two nouns of the phrase are opposite poles or contrasting/outstanding parts of some whole, so that the phrase serves as an idiom meaning “the whole range of everything in between,” or “the whole, of which the two nouns are outstanding parts.”⁵ Examples include shamayim va’aretz (“heaven and earth” — Genesis 14:19 and Psalm 146:6), meaning “the entire physical world, the universe,” and sadeh vakerem (“field and vineyard” — Numbers 16:14, 20:17 and 21:22), meaning “agricultural lands.” In a Jewish Bible Quarterly article, Ronald Hyman showed how harish veqatzir (“plowing and reaping”) and zera’ veqatzir (“sowing and reaping”) both indicate the “agricultural cycle” as a whole.⁶ I have made the same claim for the phrase lechem uvasar (“bread and meat”), which as a phrase can indicate “food” in general or “a complete meal” (see I Kings 17:6).⁷ Some of these phrases can appear with the words in the opposite order while others never do; for example, eretz veshamayim, with the same meristic meaning, appears in Genesis 2:4 and Psalm 148:14, while kerem vesadeh never does. Similar expressions in English include “pots and pans” meaning cookware, or “day and night” meaning “all the time.” Just as with the Hebrew phrases, some English phrases can appear reversed (“night and day”) while others cannot (“pans and pots”).

A third group of “X and Y phrases” involve two words closely related in meaning. Such expressions have been called “tautologies” or “synonymia.”⁸ Although each word can be used by itself with a slightly different meaning, their repeated use in a fixed phrase argues that in such phrases the two words are probably not meant to be taken literally and contrasted with one another, but that the phrase as a whole serves to convey one general meaning. English has many such phrases: “aches and pains” (minor pains of any kind) or “aid and comfort” (support of any kind). In biblical Hebrew we have phrases like chanun verachum (“gracious and compassionate,” meaning merciful — see Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2, and Psalm 145:8) and tzar ve’oyev (“adversary and enemy,” meaning an enemy — see Esther 7:6 and Lamentations 4:12). These phrases are perhaps used as poetical/rhetorical flourishes which give a special emphasis that a single word could not. Yet again, some of these phrases can appear reversed while others never do: rachum vechanun appears in Exodus 34:6 and Psalm 86:15, but tzar ve’oyev is always in that order.

The “X and Y” Phrase (Ha)Tov Ve(Ha)Yashar

The two words tov (“good”) and yashar (“straight”) appear in the fixed phrase (ha)tov ve(ha)yashar in nine biblical verses: Deuteronomy 12:28, Joshua 9:25, I Samuel 12:23, II Kings 10:3, Jeremiah 26:14 and 40:4, Psalm 25:8, and II Chronicles 14:1 and 31:20. When used separately, both words can function not only as adjectives but also as nouns (“the good,” “the straight”). The adjective yashar, used by itself, can mean “straight” in a literal sense (a straight or level road, as in Jeremiah 31:9 and Psalm 107:7), but more often it means “straight” in the figurative sense of “upright,” used as a character description similar to the way tov is sometimes used. The phrase also appears once, in Deuteronomy 6:18, with the words in the opposite order: “you shall do the straight and the good in the eyes of the Lord” (ve’asita hayashar vehatov be’aynay YHWH).

It would seem that these words, grouped together in this fixed phrase, are not intended to literally mean two separate things — “good,” and also “straight/upright.”⁹ In three of the above instances the phrase expresses the one idea of proper or correct (I Sam. 12:23 — “the good and straight path,” doing what the Lord wants), moral or helpful (Ps. 25:8 — “Good and upright is the Lord / therefore He shows sinners the way” — NJPS 1999), or even the best (II Kings 10:3 — “select the best and most suitable of your master’s sons” — NJPS 1999). In the other six instances the phrase is used as part of the larger phrase “good and straight in someone’s eyes” (tov veyashar be’aynay X) and means “pleasing” or “acceptable” to them; tov and yashar can also be used as separate but equal alternatives in this larger phrase, whether the phrase refers to human eyes or to the eyes of the Lord (for tov, see Numbers 24:1, II Samuel 3:19 and II Kings 10:5; for yashar, see Deuteronomy 12:25 and 21:9, Judges 21:25, and II Kings 10:30).

While we might argue that this phrase is a hendiadys, with yashar modifying tov to mean “straightly, i.e. completely or consistently good,” the fact that the words can appear in reversed order, plus the various possible meanings the phrase is capable of having, plus the ability of the phrase “X in the eyes of someone” to use yashar or tov as separate but equal alternatives, all argue that the fixed phrase tov veyashar is neither a hendiadys nor a merism but rather the third sort of phrase mentioned above: two words closely related in meaning, used in a fixed phrase intended to convey one general idea.

A Suggestion for Further Research: The Double Appearance of the Same Phrase in a Greek Classic

In Plato’s dialogue Meno, Section 96e, Socrates says, “it is not only under the guidance of knowledge that human activity is well and rightly conducted.”¹⁰ Klein’s commentary on this dialogue notes that the Greek phrase for “well and rightly” is orthos te kai eu.¹¹ In Section 97a, Socrates goes on to say that “if someone knows the way to Larissa… then when he goes there and takes others with him he will be a good and capable guide…” There, Klein says that the phrase “good and capable” translates the same Greek phrase, which in this section appears as orthos kai eu (without the te, the definite article “the”). Klein notes that others have struggled to find an appropriate translation, suggesting such renderings as “good and beneficial” and “well and in the right way.” The word orthos means “straight,” as in “orthodox” (straight/right of opinion) or “orthodontia” (straight teeth); kai means “and”; and eu means “good,” as in “euthanasia” (good death). Thus Plato twice uses “straight and good” — a version of the same “X and Y phrase” involving the two words “good” and “straight” that we have seen repeatedly used in biblical Hebrew.

It is certainly possible that the appearance of these two words in an “X and Y phrase” in both these Greek and Hebrew texts is a coincidence. However, the use of “straight” — a somewhat unexpected term to couple with “good” — in both phrases seems to me to leave open the possibility that it is not a coincidence, and warrants further investigation. It would be interesting to see whether the Greek phrase orthos kai eu is used in any of the Septuagint versions to translate the Hebrew phrase, and whether the phrase “good and straight” appears in other ancient Near Eastern languages. At any rate, the appearance of an “X and Y phrase” using the words “straight” and “good” in both literatures is possibly yet another intriguing connection between the biblical and the Greek worlds.