Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Polycarp66 AT aol.com]

In a message dated 3/21/2002 11:55:37 PM Eastern Standard Time, lizfried AT umich.edu writes:

Mitchell Dahood, a Catholic priest, 
translates it "Serve YHWH with reverence and
live in trembling, O mortal men!"
He reads O mortal men with no consonental
changes: ne$e qaber, men of the grave,
or men appointed for the grave.
He compares i$ mawet (I kings 2:26)
bene mawet (1 Sam 26:16).
_______________

Now that makes sense.  The RSV and NRSV translate "kiss his feet", but that requires emending the text from BR to RGLYW.  Maintaining the consonantal text is always preferable.  In the oldest manuscripts the letters were not always separated (in fact, as I recall, they usually weren't).  Liz, could you cite some more of Dahood's translation for context?  I'm afraid I left most of my books in storage.

GfSomsel