Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Raymond de Hoop <rdehoop AT tref.nl>]

Shalom Al,

The pashta (8a) and the tiphcha (twice, 8b and 8c) are accents of a higher
grade, whose distinctive force is not as strong as the zaqeph qaton, atnach
and silluq. The first mentioned (pashta and tiphcha) only serve to give a
lighter brake in the colon; the last mentioned (zaqeph qaton, atnach and
silluq) in combination with their lighter predecessors, serve to finish the
colon/clause. What you see in Deut 8:8 is that the words which belong
together by status constructus are also kept together by the conjunctive
accents and by the maqqeph. So, you may the text (more or less) as follows:


A-land-of-wheat  and-barley,
vines-and-fig-trees  and-pomegrantes;
a-land-of-oil-olives  and honey.

Hope this may help a little,

Raymond

>Al Silberman wrote,
>Can someone provide insight into why the accents break up this verse
>into:
>
>A land of wheat - and barley; vines, fig trees and pomegrantes. A land
>of oil olives - and honey. I.E. there is a servant accent on the first
>"land", no accent on the second "land" but tied to the next word by a
>maqaf.
>
>Instead of:
>A land of - wheat and barley; vines, fig trees and pomegrantes. A land
>of - oil olives and honey. I.E. pashta (disjunctive accent) on the first
>"land" with wheat and barley tied together; tipexa (disjunctive accent)
>on the second "land" with oil olives and honey tied together.




_____________________________________________________________________________

Dr Raymond de Hoop
Boeiersingel 11
9745 CA Groningen
Tel.: 050 553 01 15
E-mail: rdehoop AT tref.nl