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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] two quotes like Genesis 24:16

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  • From: Tory Thorpe <torythrp AT yahoo.com>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc: kenneth greifer <greifer AT hotmail.com>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] two quotes like Genesis 24:16
  • Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 00:46:28 -0400

On Aug 1, 2007, at 8:10 PM, kenneth greifer wrote:

If a woman had some children, and then became infertile, would she still be called "barren"?

Zion is (Isa. 54:1).

I thought barren meant that the person never had children,

That's one way "barren" is used in English, and this is the problem with studying Hebrew with English.

so saying she was barren and did not give birth before in Judges 13:2-3 was an unnecessary repetition.

That's true only if you arbitrarily decide that the English word can only or usually means "never having produced offspring" (but it can also mean "not producing offspring") and so (QR must mean "never having produced offspring" in biblical Hebrew. HALOT has it right this time. For (QRH read "infertile" and the words WL) YLDH in Jdgs. 13:2 become explanatory. Likewise, the unnecessary repetition in Genesis 24:16, "...a virgin and she did not know a man," does not exist in the Hebrew; it is created by the English translation. For BTWLH read "pre-adolescent" (MH) and the tautology goes away, as it should.

I did not think about the possibility that a barren person could have already had children.

This is not an impossibility in BH. It's not impossible in modern English either.

Tory Thorpe




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