Biblical Hebrew Forum

[John Ronning <ronning AT ilink.nis.za>]

Lloyd Barre wrote:

> Dear List Members:
>
> I really am attempting to move off this subject.  But it occurred to me 
> >that I am in a dispute with Yahweh.  He says his name used to be El (Ex 
> >3:13-15; Ex 6:2-3) and I say that it wasn't.  So who are you going to 
> >believe, anyway?

Exod 3:13-15 says nothing about El.  V. 15 says Yhwh has always been his
name.

Exod 6:2-3 says something about the relationship between the names El
Shadday and Yhwh.  Exactly what?  Exod 6:3 has (at least) three
problems: (1) a grammatical problem. (2) near context - what's the point
as a response to Moses' complaint that using the name Yhwh to Pharaoh is
of no effect? (3) far context - the patriarchs certainly knew the name
Yhwh according to Genesis.

(1) the grammatical problem:
W.$:MIY  YHWH  LO)  NOWDA(T.IY  LFHEM, or ushemiy Yhwh lo' noda`tiy
lahem.

Literal translation: "and my name Yhwh I was not known to them [the
fathers]."
This problem is usually solved by adding the preposition "by" before "my
name."  Grammarians usually list a dozen or so similar examples - the
problem is they're all from poetry, so in my view that doesn't solve
the  problem.  F. Anderson solved the missing preposition at the expense
of syntax:  "And my name is Yhwh.  Surely I made myself known to them"
(taking lo' as asseverative).

I would rather solve the grammatical problem by seeing lo' as the
preposition LOW - "as for my name Yhwh, BY IT I had been known to
them."  More idiomatically rendered, "When I appeared to Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob as El Shadday, I was already known to them by my name Yhwh." 
This agrees with the record of Genesis in which God appears first to
Abraham and Jacob saying "I am Yhwh" (Gen 15:7; 28:13), then later to
them saying "I am El Shadday" (Gen 17:1; 35:11).

Ps 48:4/3 shows that LE is an appropriate preposition to use with the
Niphal of YD(.

The spelling mistake between LO) and LOW occurs so frequently (see the
list in BDB) it hardly necessitates finding manuscript or ancient
version evidence of another reading to make an emenadation where it
improves the grammar and contextual sense of the passage.  The likely
explanation for such frequent spelling mistakes is that both LO) and LOW
had a spelling pre-history in which each (at the same time or perhaps at
different times) was spelled LH.  This is quite likely for the
preposition LOW, since the letter HE used to stand for any long vowel at
the end of a word (e.g. the fossilized spelling of Solomon's name).  For
LO), I don't know of any direct evidence for the spelling LH (spelling
with aleph is found in pre-exilic writings), but the codex
Leningradensis does have the spelling LH once (Deut 3:11).

I.e. in the process of standardizing and updating the spelling, the
preposition LOW in EMPHATIC position was mistaken for the adverb LO) in
NORMAL position (before the verb).

Accepting this solution for the grammatical problem also solves (2) -
[the response to Moses' complaint is that he must use this name to
Pharaoh because of its historical priority] - and (3) - the patriarchs
did indeed know this name, and in fact the first "I am Yhwh" occurs in a
passage predicting the enslavement and exodus (Gen 15:7), i.e. the very
circumstances in which Moses is commanded to say to Pharaoh, "thus says
Yhwh."

In short, Lloyd, historically, you've got things backwards.

Regards,

John Ronning