Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jason A. Hare" <language_lover64801 AT yahoo.com>]

Dear Mr. Heijmans,

The participle itself can indicate "who does..."  It is not necessary to
have a relative pronoun in this construction. However, the article
functions not as a relative pronoun in this situation, but as a definite
marker. For example, if you say "the Lord who makes peace..." you say
"HaShem ha'oseh shalom..." That doesn't really mean that "ha-" is a
relative pronoun. Rather, it is "The Lord, the one who makes peace..."

I would still think (from what I've read anyway) that it is very weird for
an article to be attached to a partiple that is carrying a suffix (even an
objective suffix). They are automatically definite because of the suffix,
thus they do not need an article. I wish I had some resources to read
about the peculiarities of actually finding forms like these that have the
article attached to a suffixed participle.

Regards,
Jason


> Dear Mr. Hare,
> 
> In "ha-podenu" the "ha" is not the article, but the relative pronoun.
> 
> The "ha" here means "who", just as if it was written "asher". So also in =
> the
> verse you qutoed from Dt.: "and the one _who_ is redeeming you". See =
> also
> Ges.-Kautzsch paragraph 138 i .
> 
> By the way, in the prayer you quoted, it occurs all the time: ha-podenu,
> ha-go'alenu, ha-nifra, ha-ose, ha-meshalem, etc. etc. In all these =
> instances
> it means "[He] who...".
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Shai Heijmans
>