Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryan Rocine" <596547 AT ican.net>]

Shalom, George,

surprise, surprise!  a qatal is attested following a construct form a
handful of times, for example, Lev 14:46, 1 sam 25:15, Psa 129:6, Isa 29:1,
Jer 48:36.   that crazy Hebrew language, eh?

Shalom, shalom,
Bryan


----------
From: George Athas <gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au>
To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Cc: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: Gen 1:1-2
Date: Tuesday, January 05, 1999 5:03 PM

Tony Prete wrote:

> [...]
> The basic reason, I believe, was already mentioned by someone earlier:
R"'$iYT is a construct, so that it might be translated: "the beginning
of..." (it's the B: which is the preposition, added to the front of the
word "beginning")
>
> But the question remains: Why a construct? I think that the various
translations--and the NJPS (cited earlier by Irene Rienger) seems to have
succeeded the best--are efforts to answer that question. I suspect we
simply don't have a way of saying in English what the text says in Hebrew.

If REŠIYT was in construct, then we would not expect a finite verb to
follow it. We would expect perhaps an infinitive of some sort. This is not
what we have in the MT. We have a finite verb with a subject and two direct
objects. As such, REŠIYT must be either a conjunction or
circumstance. Since it is prefixed with a preposition (B), which has not
subsumed a definite article, we must understand the first word of Genesis
as simply meaning, "At first".


B. M. Rocine
Associate Pastor
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13208

315-437-6744(w)
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