Behold,".
The word Tenach is written with three letters in Hebrew - Tav, Nun and Kaph (TNK) and is an abbrevation of the three parts of the Hebrew Bible - Torah (law), Neviyim (prophets) and Ketuviym (writings). This Bible has the Hebrew text on one page with a Jewish translation on the other. For those who are learning Hebrew and are looking for a Hebrew Bible this is a good one. This Bible is great for Jews and Christians. Christians who compare different translations do themselves a diservice by comparing only Christian translations. A Jewish translation will sometimes translate verses differently from a different perspective on the bible.
The name Canaan refers to the son of Ham, the son of Noah as well as the descendants of Canaan who settled the land west of the Jordan river. The Hebrew for this name is כנען pronounced kena'an. It is derived from the root כנע (Kena) meaning "to be brought down by a heavy load". By extension this word can also mean subdue or humble. Canaan and his descendents are continually being "brought down". Canaan was cursed by Noah and his descendents were subdued and conquered by Israel as God had promised in Deuteronomy 9. (ASV)
The phrase "Bring down" is the Hebrew word כנע (Kena) in the context of the conquest of the Canaanites.God used Israel to "bring down low" (Kena) the people who are "brought down low" (Kena'an).
The word כנען (kena'an) can also mean a "merchant" as in Hosea 12:7 (verse 8 in the Hebrew Bible) as a merchant is one who carries heavy loads.
The Revised Standard Version translation for this passage is "So God created man in his own image". As we shall see, this translation is very Western and is missing the Eastern flavour of the original text. Below is a translation, word for word, followed by a translation reflecting the Eastern meaning.
ויברא
(vay-yeev-rah)
The word ברא (bara) is a verb, literally meaning "to fatten" as well as "to fill". It is often translated as "create" as in this verse as well as in Genesis 1:1 but the concept of "creating" is a western abstract and not the true meaning of ברא. When the י (Y) is prefixed to the verb it identifies the subject of the verb as masculine and singular (he) and the verb tense as imperfect (will fill). The first letter prefixed to the word is the ו (V) meaning "and". When this letter is prefixed to a verb it switches the tense of the verb. In this case the perfect tense verb becomes imperfect. The word ויברא would literally be translated as "and he filled".
אלהים
(eh-lo-hiym)
The root of this word is אלוה literally meaning "strength" and "power" and is usually translated as God or god (a powerful one). The ים is the masculine plural suffix. The word אלהים can be translated as "gods" (quantitative plural) or as "God" (qualitative plural) in the sense of being a very powerful god. As this noun follows the verb we know that it is the subject of the verb, the "he" in the word ויברא.
את
(et)
This word preceeds a direct object of a verb telling us that the next word is "what was filled". This word is a grammatical tool used in Biblical Hebrew and has no equivelant in English and is therefore never translated.
האדם
(ha-ah-dahm)
The first letter, ה (H), is a prefix meaning "the". The word אדם (adam) means "man" and is also the name of the first man - Adam. Because it is prefixed by the article ה, we know that this word should be translated as "man" rather than Adam.
בצלמו
(beh-tsahl-mo)
The word צלם (tselem, the mem is written as ם when at the end of a word, and as מ otherwise) is an outline or form of an original and comes from the parent root צל (tsal) meaning "shadow". A shadow is a also representation of an original. The prefix ב (B) means "in" or "with". The suffix ו (O) means "of him" or "his".
Q: Why are some Hebrew words plural but translated in the singular?
A: Hebrew plurals can be either quantitative (more than one) or qualitative (great, large, prominent). For example the singular word "elo'ah" means God (or more literally mighty one). The plural form is "elohiym". This plural form can be more than one god or one great god. In fact, in Genesis 1:1 it says "in the beginning elohiym (plural) created...". In Hebrew the verb matches the verb in number and gender and the Hebrew word behind "created" is "bara" literally meaning "he created" (singular masculine). Therefore, the context of the verse will often indicate whether the noun should be translated as a plural or a singular.
Some Hebrew words are always written in the plural form such as paniym (the plural form of paneh) which means "face" (probably through the idea of the prominent part of the body). The word shamayim (heaven) is another example of a word that is always written in the plural.
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