Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bearpecs AT aol.com]

In a message dated 10/12/02 7:53:42 AM Eastern Daylight Time, brocine AT earthlink.net writes:

> in
> the poetic books, for example 'erets xayyim from Psalms,
> most often tranlsated "*the* land of *the* living."


Dahood, Freedman, Cross (and I'm sure others) make the point that the definite articles was a late development in Hebrew and archaic or archaizing texts (such as many Psalms) may omit it.  In those texts, there may well be reason, therefore, to include it in the translation even if lacking in the original.