Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Moon-Ryul Jung" <moon AT saint.soongsil.ac.kr>]

Dear list members, after learning some good things from this list,
I went back to my first question to the list, Jer 26:4-6. It makes
more sense, but still I am puzzled by it. Let me raise two 
questions. 

Let me quote a translation of the verses:

4 If ye will not hearken unto me, 
    to walk in my law, which I have set before you, 
5   to hearken unto the words of my servants the prophets,
             whom I (a)***have sent unto you***, 
                          even rising early and sending [them],
                    (b)** but ye have not hearkened ***, 
6 then will I make this house like Shiloh.

1) The phrase (a) is a translation of participle sholeach. So,
the literal translation to English would be "whom I sending 
to you". Should't we take it as "whom I send" in the sense
that God tends to send prophets to the people?

2) The phrase (b) is a translation of "w+lo+shmaoutem"
(x+gatal). It seems that phrase (b) is a sort of background
information. So some translation has:

 whom I have sent unto you so eagerly (rising early and sending)
            even though you have not heard.

But the answer to question (1) is yes, then we would have:

 whom I send unto you so eagerly even though you does not hear. (c)

Has this interpretation been avoided because it is
believed x+qatal cannot describe habitual situation?
Also, I would appreciate if you tell me ways to make sense 
of the verses without escaping to (c), which seems to ignore
Hebrew aspects.

Respectfully
Moon-Ryul Jung
Assistant Professor, Dept of Computer Science, Soongsil Univ,
Seoul, Korea