Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 23/09/2003 21:11, Pastor Mark Eddy wrote:

> ...
>
> > And "daily" is the English for YWMM. So let's turn your logic round.
> > Look and an English version: "The firmament proclaims the work of his
> > hands and day by day pours forth speech". By you argument, since "daily"
> > is the English for YWMM, in my English sentence the first "day" must be
> > the subject of "pours". But is that correct?
> >    
>
> It looks like this is indeed the case. ...
Not in my English sentence. I wrote it, so I can say what I intended it 
to mean. And I don't think anyone reading this sentence apart from the 
psalm would understand it in your way.

> ... Here's how I've translated it now:
> The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the sky is declaring the work 
> of His hands.
> A day pours out speech to another day, and a night reveals knowledge to 
> another night.
>
> But, since LYOM is often used adverbially by itself (Ex. 29:36,38 Num 7;11; 
> 28:3,24  1 K 5:2 1Ch 26:17 Jer
> 37:21 Ezek 4:10; 43:25; 45:23; 46:13) and nowhere as the indirect object (as 
> far as I can tell) ...
... which is an additional argument for my understanding ...

> ... how about
> this?:
> Day daily pours out speech, and night nightly reveals knowledge. or
> Day pours out speech by day, and night reveals knowledge by night.
>  
So, OK, you could parse my "The firmament proclaims the work of his 
hands and day by day pours forth speech" so that the first "day" is the 
subject of the second coordinated clause and "by day" is an adverb of 
time. But that was not my intention. Similarly you can parse the psalm 
in this way, but you can parse it in the other way too and there is no 
easy way to tell  which is correct.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/