The locutions in the translation of Sefer yetsirah is gnomic, a contrast from the narrative style of a creation story such as Genesis. I am unsure if this is because Hebrew (source language) is more compact than English (target language). Nonetheless, succinctness can lead to readers having to fill in the blanks, leading to different interpretations. For instance, Kaplan’s and EB’s versions, differ in length, word choice, and order of principles. In Kaplan’s, the east and west seals are respectively HYV and HVY, compared to EB's HVY and HYV. According to scholarly analysis, "HVY" means "be thou" (the imperative of “to be”) and HYV is the infinitive "to be". An imperative implies control, whereas the infinitive has greater possibilities. In
