Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jim West <jwest AT Highland.Net>]

At 11:16 PM 7/17/99 +0300, you wrote:
>Dear Polychroni,
>
>The Masoretes put a stop in the verse as follows: "Blessed is he that comes
>/ in the name of the Lord" , supporting your translation.  Also Rabbi David
>Kimche (=RaDaK, a medieval grammarian and exegete) interprets as follows
>(my translation): "We have blessed you from the Lord's house, and you will
>be blessed in His name." 

I wonder if the masoretic accenting here really does support such a
rendering.  The masoretes were after all far more interested in the sound of
a text sung then they were with the absolute meaning of the text.  Further,
the accent you point out is merely a minor break, and not a major- since the
verse continues and the portion we have been discussing is only the first 
half.

I dont think that the masoretes, to go even further, would support the claim
that was made in the original post.  And I do not think that Kimchi supports
it either.  He merely says that blessing comes from God.  

Finally, as Dave pointed out, the LXX won't allow this understanding either.
So in sum, we have:
the Hebrew tradition- which orders words in sentences by priority
the LXX- which literally follows the Heb. text
and the vast majority of translators and commentators, who have rendered it
rather straightforwardly as well.

Against this we have:
a novel suggestion unsupported by either the Hebrew or Greek texts (or the
latin for that matter!)
a rather tendentious suggestion that the masoretes support this novel reading
and
Kimchi, who does not seem to support the reading.

I must conclude that the weight of evidence is on the side of the
traditional translation and against the novel one (which is based, in any
event, on a misreading of a secondary translation and not the primary hebrew
text itself)

Best,

Jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
email- jwest AT highland.net
web page-  http://web.infoave.net/~jwest