Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Maurice A. O'Sullivan" <mauros AT iol.ie>]

At 16:06 22/09/2003, Pastor Mark Eddy wrote:

> What is the subject of the verbs AMaR and YHaWeH (yod-chet-waw-heh) in 
> Psalm 19:3? Is one YOM telling something to another YOM, and one LaYLaH 
> revealing something to another (as in NASB)? Or is HaRaQiYa' of verse 2 
> the subject of the verbs in verse 3, with the time references being 
> adverbial (as the NIV seems to read it)? And how do we know? All the nouns 
> are masculine singular, so they agree with the masculine singular verbs.

Mark:

This extract from:
Bratcher, R.G., and J.A. Thompson, eds. Bible Index. Helps for Translators. 
London: United Bible Societies, 1970.
may help.

It lays out Ps. 19:2 in RSV and TEV as follows:

RSV                                             TEV
Day to day pours forth speech                    Each day announces it to 
the following day;
and night to night declares knowledge         each night repeats it to the 
night

and then comments;

Here _day_ and _night are pictured as passing on the proclamation of God's 
glory.
The verb in line _a_ " pours forth" means to pour out, like a spring, and 
indicates a continuous, uninterrupted proclamation.
_Speech_  in line _a_ and _knowledge_ in line _b_ have to do with the 
proclamation of God's glory; line _a_ means "Each day talks about God's 
glory to the next day," and line _b_ means "Every night shares its 
knowledge of God with the following night."

In some languages it will be unnatural to speak of _day_  and _night_ in a 
personified manner, as if they can speak. In those cases these expressions 
may be recast to say something like "Day after day people can see the glory 
of God, night after night they can see how great God is." However, since 
verses 3-4 refer to speech, words, and voice, it may be better to shift to 
a simile and say, for example, ' each day announces it like a person 
speaking; each night repeats it to the following !inight like a person 
repeats words."

Regards

Maurice



Maurice A. O'Sullivan  [ Bray, Ireland ]
mauros AT iol.ie