Biblical Hebrew Forum

[waldo slusher <waldoslusher AT yahoo.com>]

Frank Polak wrote earlier:

> In my view the cardinal )xd serves as ordinal (the
> ordinal for 'first' 
> varies extremely in all semitic languages, in sharp
> contrast with the 
> toher ordinals and the rather fixed mode of the
> cardinals). 

Would you therefore allow for this translation of the
Shema, taking )xd here as ordinal even though )xd
lacks the defininte article:

Listen, Israel: As for the Lord your God, the Lord is
first.

But how would be understand "first"? 


=====
Waldo Slusher
Calgary, AB

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