Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk" <Peter_Kirk AT sil.org>]

Do I understand you as saying that the hO in EGW EIMI hO WN (not hO ON,
surely, in the standard transliteration, that W is an omega), the LXX for
Exodus 3:14, is a relative pronoun? Surely not, this is the article. If it
were a relative pronoun, this would read hOS WN if masculine, or possibly hO
ON if neuter. Anyway, I don't think you would ever have a relative clause
consising of only a participle, whereas the construction article +
participle is very common. A possible alternative would be EGW EIMI hOS EGW
EIMI, perhaps?, but not with hO unless neuter.

Now if your point is that hO WN functions as a relative clause, an
equivalent to hOS EGW EIMI, that might be a valid analysis of the Greek. We
had to do something similar, replacing the relative clause with a
participial phrase, in the target language I am working with, which does not
have relative clauses in the Indo-European or Semitic sense.

I like the Greek rendering of this used in effect as the name of YHWH in
Revelation 1:4 etc: hO WN KAI hO HN KAI hO ERCOMENOS, lit. "the being and
the was and the coming". The Greek is ungrammatical, but surely this is
capturing well the ancient writer's understanding of the Hebrew as original
as present, past and future.

Peter Kirk

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Wagner [mailto:dan.wagner AT netzero.net]
Sent: 05 May 2001 03:36
To: Biblical Hebrew
Subject: Re: _)aSHER_ in Ex. 3:14 (was "I AM")

<snip>

> Aside from that, though, I don't know that )a:$eR does
> nothing but subordinate in these instances.  It tends to take on the
> function of a relative adjective "the one who ___."  Regarding this, see
> below.

In English (and Greek), it's translated as a relative, yes. But i don't
think that is the essence of its function in Hebrew. It's so hard to divorce
ourselves from understanding grammar in terms of English or whatever target
language. I'm not accusing you of doing that here, but i think it's worth
thinking about.

>
> > LXX has "ego eimi ho on,"
> > which is "I am THE ONE BEING/EXISTING" or "I am THE BEING." How
> > does it take it as a relative? I understand it to not take it as
> > such, the _ho_ being the definite article. If they understood it
> > in the our traditional way, should we not expect something like
> > "ego eimi ho ego eimi" or simply just "eimi ho eimi" (cf. Paul in
> > 1 Cor. 15:10).
>
> "The one who is" is a relative construction.  And when the universal
> relativizer functions adjectivally in Hebrew, it takes on a character not
> unlike a participle, in this case one used substantivally as translated in
> the LXX.

Yes, i accept this. After posting while going to bed last night i started
thinking about what i'd said about the definite article, and it was really
haunting me! It's a relative in Greek.

However, what i really should have emphasized (which is the reason that LXX
caught my eye to start with) is that the first _)EHYEH_ [trnsl. as _ego
eimi_] is not translated the same as the second _)EHYEH_ [as _ho on_], and
that the way of translating the 2nd _)EHYEH_ is the one repeated for the
name later in the verse [_ho on_]. The point is that they considered the
name to be only _ho on_ = 2nd _)EHYEH_, and they did *not* consider the name
to be the entire _)EHYEH )eSHER )EHYEH_. If they had, then they would have
translated _ego eimi ho ego eimi_, don't you think?

Dan Wagner