Biblical Hebrew Forum

[mjoseph <mjoseph AT terminal.cz>]

After I 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,..."

Peter Kirk responded:

>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.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to upset you. It was an honest question about 
nomenclature; I thought you, I or the database might be using "plural" to 
refer to the possessor, rather than the number of the suffix. I would 
point out, though, that if the ending is plural, it is interesting that 
no one has ever translated it "their faces."

>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.

The list is from K & D. I figured they meant that the -MOW ending is 
always (or almost always) singular. I don't have GKC; if you would be so 
kind as to list the passages in which the -MOW ending is clearly plural, 
I'd appreciate it greatly.

Better still, if someone with an electornic concordance could list all 
the occurrences of the -MOW ending, we could figure it out for ourselves.

>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?

See my sig file.

>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?

I don't have anything available.

Mark Joseph

____________________________
There are two kinds of fools:
The first says, "This is old, therefore it is good."
The other says, "This is new, therefore it is better."
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