Biblical Hebrew Forum

[a.c.smith AT juno.com (Andrew C Smith)]

Paul Zellmer has a good suggestion: rather than introduce the topic
abstractly, let's use actual, concrete examples. Actually, Paul, I didn't
have any particular examples in mind when I posed the question, because
the phenomenon is so common in the text, but examples are easy enough to
find:

Deut 4:2 "...the Lord y'all's God..." [plur.]
Deut 4:3 "...the Lord your God..." [sing.]
Deut 4:4 "...the Lord y'all's God..." [plur.]

Deut 4:10 "...the Lord your God..." [sing.]
Deut 4:12 "...the Lord y'all's God..." [plur.]

Deut 4:15 "...the Lord y'all's God..." [plur.]
Deut 4:19 "...the Lord your God..." [sing.]

The sentences listed above are all part of one speech, given at one time,
to the same crowd of people. Why the variations?

Even if one accepts one of the many different versions of the
"documentary hypothesis", this is not an easy phenomenon to explain,
because the "chunks" of text which the documentary hypothesis assumes
were patched together are not usually that small, and because even a bad
editor would have smoothed out such obvious errors.

The BHS notes some variant MSS which correct these passages, which tells
me that at some point in time, someone else raised this question, and
sought to "smooth out" the differences (paradigm leveling, but not on a
morphological level, but rather at a much higher level).

One possibility could be "ossification" - i.e., that at some point in
time, the phrase "...the Lord your God..." got standardized in one form
(either sing. or plur.), and was then used in this ossified form, even
when it was grammatically illogical.

What do you think?
What do y'all think?

One more thought: working with living languages which make the
distinction between 2nd person sing. and plur., I can't image a German
confusing "du" and "ihr", or a Russian confusing "too-ee" and "voo-ee".
What situation would it take to make a Russian or a German start mixing
up these most basic units of speech?

A.C. Smith

a.c.smith AT juno.com

___________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html
or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]