Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

Charles, 
> I apologize for over-defensiveness and also if I attribute to you positions
> that you do not take.  One of the problems with such a list is that I cannot
> always sort out exactly who said what.  Sometimes it might be better if only
> two were dialoguing back and forth sequentially before others chimed in with
> their side lights.  I am as guilty as anyone else here, so accept my part in
> a sometimes less-than-clear strand of argumentation.

I'm good at stating things in a less than clear fashion.  I think a lot 
of it has to do with the medium of email, which seems to engender 
a rushed mindset.  In any case, on with the show!

> I am glad to know that I have erred in painting you in with those who offer
> the unusually high pillar of fire to explain an unusually long column of
> Hebrews marching across the desert.  I consider such an assumption to be the
> last refuge of the truly desperate.

Yes.  I have no problem with the idea that there was a pillar of 
cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, but how high it was I have 
no idea.  I also get the feeling that there's something about the 
figures in Exodus (and in Numbers as well, which I was reading 
with a rather astonished eye a couple of days ago) that we simply 
don't understand.  Stuff like that is one aspect of the language that 
stays interesting for me.


Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name.
                                   Psalm 86:11