Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

There are a couple of particles in Psalm 95 that have me wondering
about some things.  The first is )IM in v.7.  On the surface it makes
sense, sort of: "Today if you will listen to his voice..."  However, the
next several clauses are a direct oracle in first person, obviously
from YHWH, so we end up with a rather harsh anacoluthon
between v.7 and 8ff.  So I'm thinking, could we legitimately render it
as an emphatic, i.e. "Today you will surely hear his voice: begin
oracle here" so to speak?  The problem is that )IM seems to be
used in this sense later on in v.11, but there it has its "normal"
(whatever that means) emphatic use as a negative, "no way will
this happen."  If that is the only emphatic use it has, then I would
have to render v.7 "Today you will not listen to his voice."  That
doesn't make sense.  If it were the common emphatic positive use,
I would expect )IM LO) "you will surely hear his voice."  So I have a
bit of a dilemma here.  Anybody have thoughts on this?

The other problem word I have is the ):A$ER at the beginning of
v.11.  On the surface it appears to mean "therefore," but I'm not
sure this is really an attested meaning of the word.  The LXX
apparently read KA):A$ER, something along the lines of "they did
not know my way, when I swore in my anger etc."  I have trouble
making sense of that, too.  Any thoughts on this word would be
very welcome, as well.


Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"Éist le glór Dé."