סַנְוֵרִים

From the study of 2 Kings 6:18

Range of meaning

It appears only twice in the Hebrew Bible, here and in Genesis 19:11, and both times it is something God (or God's messengers) inflicts suddenly on a hostile crowd. The ordinary Hebrew word for physical blindness is different: ʿiwwārôn, with the adjective ʿiwwēr, "blind". Most scholars accept a link to an Akkadian word (Akkadian was the language of ancient Assyria and Babylon) meaning "to make dazzlingly bright" (šunwurum, from nawāru, "to shine"). On that view sanwerim is a blinding by overwhelming light, a dazzlement, rather than a wasting of the eyes.

Against the English

KJV, WEB, BSB, ESV, NASB and NIV all say "blindness". NLT says "make them blind". The NJPS (Jewish Publication Society) translation renders it as a "blinding light", which keeps the probable dazzling sense. "Blindness" is not wrong, but in modern English it suggests a lasting medical condition of total sightlessness.

How it drifted

English has a single word, "blindness", for both ordinary and supernatural loss of sight, and translators since the Greek and Latin versions have used the general word.

Used elsewhere in the period

Genesis 19:11: the men of Sodom, struck with sanwerim, "wore themselves out trying to find the door". They are still groping and searching, which describes confusion rather than simple darkness. The Greek Septuagint uses ἀορασία (aorasia, "inability to see") in both places. The Aramaic Targums use šabrîrîn, a word for dazzled, impaired sight that later Jewish tradition also used as the name of a demon of blindness. Lexicons that note the Akkadian link include HALOT, and E. A. Speiser in his Anchor Bible Genesis commentary.