Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Bryan,


Thank you for a fine description of your views.

Two short comments:

>"It was Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah that were repairers(qatal) of
>the V. Gate.  They were rebuilders(qatal) of it and then they
>set(wayyiqtol) its doors, etc. And then they repaired(wayyiqtol)...the
>wall..."
>
>"As for Malichijah...he was a repairer(qatal) of the D. Gate.  He
>rebuilt(yiqtol) it and set(yiqtol) its doors, etc."
>
>"As for Shallum...he was a repairer(qatal)of the F. Gate.  He
>rebuit(yiqtol) it, and set(yiqtol) its doors, etc."
>
>I think this translation technique is more sensitive to the pragmatic
>function of the verb forms as organizers of the discourse as well as
>somehow preserving the distinct meaning of the verb forms.  Frankly, I
>think English translations which translate all the verb forms in such a
>passage using the English simple past, suggest that the Hebrew writer was
>primitive, unskilled in rhetoric.  Nothing is farther from the truth.  In
>addition, my translation is an attempt to preserve the difference between
>the prefixed _we-_ and the prefixed _way-_.

I like your translation of Neh 3:13-15. In a study Bible, with a target
group of persons wanting to come as close as possible to the original text
by the help of their mother tongue, such translations would be very helpful.
The principal difference between our views is that I take the word (verb
form) as the fundamental semantic unit while you use the clause as
fundamental semantic unit. This indicates in my view that your conclusions
are much more difficult to test because a clause has a huge amount of
information, and this  must be tested together, while I can work with the
single word.

Regards
Rolf

Rolf Furuli
Lecturer in Semitic languagee
University of Oslo