Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bill Ross" <BillRoss AT norisksoftware.com>]

<Bryan>
>>>>>In the case of Gen 15:6, for better or worse, the writer is
assuming we know who is doing the xabashing (accounting)...

<Bill>
What do you make of this writer's view?:

"The second part of this verse records Yahweh's response to Abram's
exercise of faith: "he credited it to him as righteousness." But even
here there is a degree of ambiguity. Who credited whom? Of course, one
may say that the NT settles the issue, for Paul expressly identifies the
subject as God and the indirect object as Abram (Rom. 4:3). If we follow
normal Hebrew syntax, in which the subject of the first clause is
presumed to continue into the next clause if the subject is unexpressed,
then the verse's meaning is changed...Does he, therefore, continue as
the logical subject of the second clause? The Hebrew of the verse
certainly permits this interpretation, especially when one recalls that
sedaqa means both "righteousness" (a theological meaning) and "justice"
(a juridical meaning). The whole verse could then be translated: "Abram
put his faith in Yahweh, and he [Abram] considered it [the promise of
seed(s)] justice." 

Victor P Hamilton, New International Commentary on the Old Testament Vol
1, Eerdmans Page 425