Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Trevor Peterson <06PETERSON AT cua.edu>]

>===== Original Message From CS Bartholomew <jacksonpollock AT earthlink.net>
=====
>Well I checked the MT and sure enough, Rahab's expression ba¹u ¹elai is the
>same one used by Judah propositioning Tamar ¹avo¹ ¹elayikh Gen. 38:16.

Yes, it certainly can mean that.
>
>Anyway, the Net Bible brought this out "these men were clients of mine"
>which softens the expression considerably but at least gets the idea across.
>
>Is there really any question about what Rahab means by this?

What interests me is the way the question is worded in the preceding verse.
Did they add "who entered your house," as NET suggests, to mask the sense, or
was it really intended to clarify the question, since they knew it could be
taken more than one way? In other words, I wonder if the men were trying to
avoid a sexual implication and simply wanted to question her about whether the
men had been there. The additional phrase could have been used to clear up
possible confusion. But I'm not certain that this is in fact the case. It
makes me wonder, though.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics