Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Kevin Buchs" <buchs AT lutheran.com>]

Thanks for the information, Trevor, and your patience.  I am going to
process your comments in my slow pace, but on inital glance it looks like
you have explained my problems in terms of rules that were familiar.

I did indeed miss a syllable in my first question and that explains my
confusion.  I guess it is sometimes a problem doing my study first thing
upon waking :-)

> Hope that's of some help.  I'll let the verb gurus on the list address the
> use of the prefixal form at the beginning of the verse.  It seems like we
> should expect a past-tense notion, so the rule of thumb that you translate
> prefixal verb forms as future or present and suffixals as past needs some
> sort of modification here.  There are a number of theories to deal with
it,
> but maybe you don't want to get into all that just yet.

I am not familiar with the term "prefixal" but I would guess that is dealing
the use of WAW Consequtive forms.  I had that on my list to ask about
regarding the passage.  It seems that the tense modification rules I learned
cannot make sense-so I ignored them.  I have gotten the sense that grammar
takes a second chair to rhythm in poetical Hebrew.

Thanks for the encouragement.  I am not using my seminary training in a
professional capacity, though I wish I was.  I really desire to understand
Hebrew better as a means of fuller understanding of the Hebrew Bible/Old
(&New) Testament.  When I did serve as a pastor I did use Hebrew for sermon
preparation at least once a month, but I used my cheater tool of BibleWorks
to get through the grammar and then dug into the theology.  (Don't tell my
Sem profs about this!)

Kevin Buchs  buchs AT lutheran.com  Rochester, MN