Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG]

In response to my:

">Westminster Morphological Database parses as "noun both plural 
>construct with pronominal suffix 3rd masculine plural" and GKC 
(91h,l) >confirms that -MOW is a rare poetic plural possessive.

Mark Joseph wrote:

"Keil & Delitzsch call this a "dignified singular suffix."  We both 
know that it is a 3rd person masculine *singular* suffix attaching to 
a *plural* noun,..."

Who is the "we" here? "Keil, Delitzsch and I"? If so, OK, though for 
"know" you really should say "think" or "assert". Or "you and I"? If 
so, certainly not, this is precisely what I am questioning, in that 
the Westminster database gives the suffix as 3rd masculine plural, 
which is normal for the -MOW ending. I know that this ending here is 
not unique (see the fuller list in GKC 91l and 103o), but this is its 
only occurrence with PANIYM. The list you give seems to be of 
occurrences of the -MOW ending which are said to be singular rather 
than plural; I have just found PFN"YMOW in Psalm 11:7 in the list of 
such occurrences in GKC's footnote 3 at 103f.

So what do we believe? The 1998 scholarship of the Westminster 
database or the 1867 scholarship of Delitzsch? Which is better, the 
old or the new? What do more recent commentators say? P.C. Craigie 
(Word Biblical Commentary) translates "The upright shall see his face" 
without grammatical comment, and the UBS Handbook by Bratcher and 
Reyburn assumes the same reading without comment. Can anyone find more 
recent discussion of this odd grammar?

Peter Kirk