Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Dear Ken:

I am not able to translate this document, as some of the words I don’t 
recognize. The first three words are “Thus they say unto them” followed by a 
verb in the infinitive, then “to you” followed by three objects of the 
infinitive verb, only the last one I recognize meaning “the house”.

I have no idea as to the identity of the “they” and “them” and the verb in 
the infinitive has its first letter either a gimmel or samech, the second a 
resh or dalet, but the final an alep.

Sorry I can’t be more help. Karl W. Randolph.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Penner" <pennerkm AT mcmaster.ca>

> Karl wrote:
> 
> > You claim that the three words ending with an alep are names. 
> > Those are not Hebrew names, possibly Aramaic.
> ...
> > All in all, I find this a puzzling document. It is NOT good 
> > Biblical Hebrew. 
> 
> I agree that this document is not Hebrew; Moabite seems the best bet.
> 
> > The second letter in the fourth 
> > word you read as a samekh, I as a gimmel. The hole in the 
> > papyrus there makes it difficult for me to be certain.
> 
> You are not alone; I too read it as a gimel at first, and so did FMCross ("A
> Papyrus Recording a Divine Legal Decision and the Root RXQ in Biblical and
> Near Eastern Legal Usage," pages 311-320 in _Texts, Temples, and
> Traditions_; Winona Lake, 1996) and S. Ahituv, "A Divine Verdict: A Judicial
> Papyrus of the 7th Century BCE," in _EI_ 26 (Frank Cross volume, 1999):1-4
> (in Hebrew). But the 2000 Semitica article shows it to be a samek from
> around 600 BCE.
> 
> > This papyrus has the correct usage to read 
> > it as "unto them".
> 
> I can't think how we could make sense of two prepositional phrases in this
> context. What would your complete translation be?
> 
> Ken Penner, Ph.D. (cand.), McMaster University
> Vocabulary Memorization software:
> http://socserv.socsci.mcmaster.ca/westerholm/flash or
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flash_pro/join 
> 

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