Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Trevor & Julie Peterson" <06peterson AT cua.edu>]

watts-westmaas wrote:

> In my dictionary the word: 'ELem' is defined in hebrew as:
> 'SILENCE' or 'NO
> ABILITY TO SPEAK'.  I then wonder why we have the word 'ILeM'
> (used in about
> 10 places).

Presumably the idea would be that elem is a noun and ilem is an adjective.

> In  Psalm 56:1 e.g. there just as many variations from:
>
> The dove of silent distances, the distant dove of silence, the dove of
> distant oaks, the silent dove in the distance, just to mention a
> few. I have
> the same problem with Psalm 58:2.

The headings of the psalms are notorious. It may very well be that we can't
make any sense out of this verse. Let's look at the other one to start out.
>
> Concerning Psalm 58:2 - I find difficult to understand precisely what the
> psalmist was trying to convey - in hebrew of course.

Well, the context suggests an accusation against the Psalmist's enemies. The
syntax of the second line suggests that perhaps this word should be a
vocative of some sort. Two suggestions resulting in the same vocalization
are to re-point with tsere and hireq as elim, either a short plural from
el--"gods," or a defectively written plural of ayil--"rams." Either way, the
sense would come out the same, as the referent is human leaders. I don't
know where the vocalization in the MT might have come from, but the versions
don't seem to agree on the reading.

As for the other, rechoqim presumablly needs something to modify. Ignoring
our word for the moment, we have yonat--the construct singular of "dove,"
and we have a plural adjective. It would make the most sense syntactically
for what comes between to be a masculine plural adjective. Given the
options, I'd say trees makes more sense than rams or gods, to be associated
with a bird. So I'd say we have here something like "dove in distant oaks."
Again, it requires that we re-point the word in question, but when it
appears only twice, both in awkward situations, and both poetic, it's hard
to be too dogmatic about such an obscure word.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics