Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Isaiah 53:8

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Samuel Arnet <samuel.arnet AT theol.unibe.ch>
  • To: Karl Randolph <kwrandolph AT email.com>, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Isaiah 53:8
  • Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 09:42:11 +0100

Karl Randolph wrote:

The -MW suffix is used well over 170 times in Tanakh, less than a
third of those connected to the L- prefix. When we take into account
all the uses of the suffix, there are several times that it refers to
a singular object. That is more than the at least three times
(Genesis 9:26-27, Isaiah 44:15) that it is connected to the L- prefix
referring to a singular object. Examples include Genesis 19:15
referring to the dawn, Exodus 15:5 where it refers to "a stone",
shall I go on? You need to refer to all of these uses, not to
restrict yourself to those connected to the L- prefix.

I was referring here to the form *LF^MOW*; you, however (in the
Genesis and Exodus passages mentioned above) to L:MOW and K.:MOW, which
are separate lemmas.

The insistance that the -MW suffix has to have a plural meaning comes
from its use in Isaiah 53:8 because of the theological implications
of its use as a singular in that verse. Therein lies the impetus to
eisegete a plural meaning into verses that have a singular
construction.

As it now stands in L, the passage at the end of this verse is rather
difficult to translate. The Septuagint seems to have had a different
reading; based on this, BHS and others emendate to LAM.F^WET.

Ps. I noticed that the list you referrenced does not include all the
uses of LMW, where the L- prefix is used with the -MW suffix. Why
were those examples omitted?

We are talking about two historically different, but similar looking
pronominal suffixes:

1. -F^MOW or -"Y^MOW, used a bit more than 75 times, always unstressed;
only in poetic parts of the Hebrew Bible, and most often used
with LF^MOW; another example is )"YN"^MOW in Ps 59:14;
2. -OW or -W, used (of course) very often, always stressed.

The former is, *morphologically*, plural, the latter is singular.

Samuel

--
zu KAHAL, siehe
http://www.theol.unibe.ch/ibw/projekte.html






Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page