Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryan Rocine" <brocine AT earthlink.net>]

B-Haverim,

Please, a little help exegeting the last sentence for my
sermon: lo' xarats libney yisra'el le'ish 'et leshono.  I am
thinking that this sentence is more or less of a paraphrase
or elaboration of the previous, "and all the people
returned...in peace..."  Perhaps the peace is not so good.
They had failed in preventing the entrance of escapees into
their walled cities as Joshua had instructed them to do.
And perhaps it was not good that they were not criticizing
one another or provoking one another for their failure.
How's this for a translation:  "none of the children of
Israel sought to provoke another"?  The sense is quite a bit
different than anything I have seen in the translations I
checked.  I am considering libney yisra'el may be an
adjective phrase modifying the subject of xarats.

Todah rabah!
Bryan


B. M. Rocine
Associate Pastor
Living Word Church
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