Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Paul Zellmer" <zellmer AT digitelone.com>]

Jon,

Once again, I am away from my lexicons, but I am not surprised with the
use of the lamed in the context you are examining.  In very general
terms, the preposition beth seems to carry the concepts of (a)
accompaniment (I would include here the "against" meanings) and (b) the
channel for an action.  Lamed, on the other hand, has a much wider
variety of usages, including, in part, (a) genitival concepts (including
such things as possession) and (b) direction or goal.  Since "source" is
a genitival concept, I would see the lamed as being perfectly in line
with my general understanding of the prepositions.

To state it another way, had beth been used here, I would have seen the
possibility for the source of the blessing to be other than YHWH, and
for YHWH to be in the role of transmitter of the blessing.  Note in your
Hosea example that the beth plays exactly that function.

Hope this helps,

Paul
----- Original Message -----
From: Jonathan Bailey <jonathan.bailey AT gmx.de>
To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Sunday, October 24, 1999 6:43 AM
Subject: Prepositions with Berakh


> Can anybody tell me (with perhaps a verse reference) which preposition
would be
> used in BH for "by" with the word berakh in a phrase such as "I bless
you by YHWH". I
> am looking at a paleo-Hebrew inscription here which has "brktk lyhwh"
but I would
> have expected something like "brktk byhwh" because I would think the
preposition
> would be "be-", such as in the phrase "diber YHWH behoshe'a" (Hos 1,2)
"Adonai
> spoke through/by Hosea"
>
> Am I detecting a difference in the language of my inscription and that
of classic BH?
> Or is "le-" used for "by" in BH too? If not with berakh, then perhaps
with other verbs?
>
> While we're at it, I am interested in differences between BH and
paleo-Hebrew in
> general, or similarities between paleo-Hebrew and the archaic biblical
poetry for that
> matter. Anybody have any interesting insights here?
>
>
> Jon
>
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