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  • From: Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re[2]: Psalm 11:7c
  • Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 12:10:49 -0500 (EST)


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




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