Biblical Hebrew Forum

[ian goldsmith <iangoldsmith1969 AT yahoo.co.uk>]

Good afternoon.

Schmuel asked an excellent question recently about the
occurence of adonai in Ezra 10:3 and Isaiah 21:8.
Which has made me look into this in a bit more detail
and has brought up a couple of questions.

In the BHS which I'm using to look up the occurrences
of adonai, I find 568 mentions of the word in the same
form. Only once in Judges 13:8 do I find adonai with a
vav after the daleth.

Why then does Gesenius and Davidson draw a distinction
between the interpretation of this word? They both
state, as far as I can understand, that adonai with a
vav is only used when refering to the LORD/YHWH and
yet this seems to only occur once. Also however there
seems to be the assumption that sometimes adonai is
only used of God, where in the unpointed text it is
used of both man and God.

Is there some textual/grammatical basis for assuming
the adonai in the verses Ezra 10:3, Isaiah 21:8 and
Psalm 110:1 refers only to the LORD.
As far as I can tell from the unpointed text this word
could refer to man or God. 

Any thoughts? I'd very much appreciate them.

Thanks.
Ian.

____________________________________________________________
Nokia Game is on again. 
Go to http://uk.yahoo.com/nokiagame/ and join the new
all media adventure before November 3rd.