Biblical Hebrew Forum

["George Athas" <gathas AT hotkey.net.au>]

| When you say that the context requires "same," do you mean identity,
| constancy, or something else?

David,

I guess the identical pronoun in Hebrew (and Greek) usually refers to 
identity. However, I have a
feeling that constancy is not beyond its scope either. I have not followed 
this through with any
analysis--it's just a gut feeling. You might want to do a search to check 
this out.

In terms of the complement that you mentioned, the identical pronoun has the 
same uses as
demonstratives. As such, it can act attributively, predicatively or 
substantively. In Greek, it is
generally in the attribute position, though that is not hard and fast. Hebrew 
usually has it in the
attributive position also, but you may well have a substantive use in Ps 102.


Best regards,

Dr GEORGE ATHAS
Lecturer of Biblical Languages
Southern Cross College
Sydney, Australia