Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

Dear Paul,

you are correct about being intended on-list. sorry about being 'offlist'.
i must manually add 'b-hebrew' and sometimes forget.   there, i just did it
for this email. 
and for clarity i'll list the original immediately below with (>>)

>>you asked as real questions,
>>here are some real aqnswers:

>>verb forms in isaiah 51.2 

>>teHolelxem 
>>   'who would birth you'. 
>>   poetic play for 'your mother'. 
>>   compare prosaic 51.9, using the 'plain, default' verb form: 
>>   meHolelet  tanin 'birther of serpent' 
>>qerativ 
>>   'i called him'
>>   simple past
>>vaavarexehu 
>>   'and i would bless him' 
>>   (implying continuity for listeners)
>>vearbe 
>>   'and i would multiply him'
>>   (implying continuity for listeners)

>>these last two verbs could be repointed with qamtas and read as simple
pasts, too. however, the >>complexity of switches like 51.4-5 'my law will
go forth, ..., my salvation has gone forth, my arms will give >>justive to
the nations' show that the complex massoretic reading is acceptable as is.

(you queried)
>I'm not sure I understand, though, Randall, what you think the writer
>was trying to do with the yiqtol describing Sarah.  I see you
>translating it as a modal.  Are you seeing this as the writer proposing
>that the ones being addressed are either not or no longer true children
>of Sarah?  Do they need to be "reborn" (not using that term in modern
>Christian sense). ...

that might be a possible implication of the wording, though i think the
author primarily meant to describe a 'mother' with an expanded, poetic
parallel to 'father'. 
"to sara, who will have birthed you, too". "sara who gives birth to all of
you."
the author avoided a simple past "sara gave birth to you", since that is
not true in an immediate physical sense. and likewise the author avoided a
more insipid 'mother' as too simple a parallel to father.

(you also queried)
> I also note that you apparently see the root of the
>word in verse 2 as the same as the root of the word in verse 9.
>Interesting, but I will want to research that in the lexicons when I get
>back tomorrow.

my eye saw the parallel on the page and used it while explaining verse 2. 
meHolelet is indeed the default, prosaic form for 'birther, mother'. 
the point was to illustrate that teHolel could function rhetorically as
more than the simpler description meHolelet. 

but there are multiple meanings/words to meHolelet, and they must be
addressed for verse 9.
now, reading through the context in vv. 9-10, i would go with with a
homonym 'killer, stabber' for that verse. It is another meHolelet for a
different context. 

interestingly enough, looking at a miqraot gedolot rather than a simple MT:
rashi reads meHolelet as 'kill', 
while QimHi reads "meHolelet--from the weak verb 'Hyl keyoleda' (writhing
like someone giving birth)(ps 48.7)"
since qimHi uses ps 87.4 to relate rahav to Egypt, it appears that he may
be reading this as an appositive, "birthing the crocodile", i.e. the arm of
the Lord, creator of the crocodile, was the destroyer of Egypt.)
i go with rashi, since the parallel in verse 10 "destroyer of Yam",
"destroyer of the sea" fits more closely with a meHolelet tannin as "killer
of the Sea monster". targum goes with 'destroy', too, while explicitly
agreeing with both rashi and qimHi that pharoah is the tannin. 

to save you lexical work, there are three (or more) Holel's, one related to
Halal 'corpse' (Hll), another related to 'dance' maHol (Hvl) and a third
'creation/birth', related to Hayil 'strength' (Hyl) and Hil 'pain' (ps
48.7). 

>Anyway, you definitely helped me, even though I still have the question
>about Sarah and the birthing.

but i'm not sure you will want to reproduce the hebrew tense in
translation. 
perhaps 
       "to sara, who became a mother to all of you" 
would work better in english and as a translation model.

and you helped me, too. we wouldn't want to take meHolelet tannin out of
context !

braxot
randall buth