Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jonathan Bailey <jonathan.bailey AT gmx.de>]

So you are saying that the factitive nature of the Piel brk would make 
berakhtikha 
leyhwh mean something like "I put you in a blessed state OF yhwh.", or "I put 
you in a 
state of being blessed TO yhwh.", both of which one would then render into 
acceptable English as "I bless you by yhwh."?

But even if this is the case, my point is less to see the logic of the 
construction than 
to determine the relationship between biblical and paleo Hebrew. If this is 
correct, 
then it would mean that the construction made sense in the inscription that I 
am 
reading, which is not my primary concern. I already do not doubt that the 
inscription 
makes sense. What I am interested in is if this same speech pattern is to be 
found in 
the Hebrew bible. I am trying to determine if the differences between paleo 
and biblical 
Hebrew are more than orthographic.

So here I am looking for precedents within the bible for the same type of 
construction. 
Preferably with brk, but other verbs which illustrate the same relationship. 
Notice that 
my analysis above uses the particular qualities of the piel (or hiphil). If 
the same sort 
of construction (subj, obj, agent with le-) were to be found (with any sort 
of 
frequency) in kal, I would have to come up with some other analysis.

I am trying to familiarize myself with the paleo-Hebrew inscriptions because 
they are 
thought to be contemporary to archaic biblical poetry and anacendent to the 
classical 
biblical prose and poetry by the secular scholarship. More fundamentalistic 
types 
place all categories (the inscriptions, classical prose, classical poety, 
archaic poetry) 
within the same timespan, but attribute the differences to literary form, 
genre, and 
dialect. I am trying to form my own opinion.

I am JUST beginning this study, and am not too familiar with inscriptions or 
the 
archaic poetry at this point, so please forgive any dumb questions and do not 
hesitate 
to correct my endeavors. I also do not at this time have the tools at my 
disposal to do 
this properly (just a bible, lexicons, grammars, and an English search engine 
with 
Strong's tags at this point, though I am hurredly buying concordances, 
specialized 
grammars, and Hebrew search tools), so please forgive the simplistic 
questions. 
Preferably I would like to find someone else on the list with adequate tools 
who is also 
interested in this sort of thing so we could do a study together and they 
would not 
mind my badgering.

Jon

---------- Original Message ----------

>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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