Biblical Hebrew Forum

["David Stabnow" <dstabno AT lifeway.com>]

J. W. Embry wrote, in part: "I was reading a book on Hebrew that stated
there is no word for "AM" in
the Hebrew language."

That is an incomplete generalization.  It is true that Hebrew statements of
identification ("The king of Israel is David") and classification ("David
is good") are most often constructed without a verb, basically with just
the nouns jammed next to each other.  Perhaps the book was saying that the
particular sentence it was citing did not use any verb.

However, the language does have a couple of ways of saying "is."  One is
the verb "to be," _HFYFH_ (pronounced "haya").  Another is the "particle of
existence" which is often translated "there is," _Y"$_ ("yesh" rhymes with
the first syllable of "facial").  Its counterpoint is the particle of
non-existence, _)AYIN_ (pronounced "ayin"), translated "there is no ...".

I have a theory (with little support, yet) that sometimes the verb is used,
as opposed to the verbless clause, if the author wants to make clear the
tense or aspect of the situation.  To state it simplistically, "David was
king of Israel" (suffix verb); "David is king of Israel" (verbless); "David
will be king of Israel" (prefix verb).

(This theory came about when I was comparing clauses with the "to be" verb
negated by _LO)_ against clauses using the particle of non-existence.  I
could provide biblical examples on request.)

When the Lord called Himself "I am," He was using the verb "to be."

Dave Stabnow