Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Marko,

>It has been suggested that the LXX translator of Zechariah 12:11 read
>the Hebrew MGD[W]N as a verb or verbal noun deriving from GDD or (less
>commonly) GD(. Do you agree with this and if you do, how would you parse
>the word and/or translate it literally?

HH: That seems right, although GD( seems less likely to me, as I can't
understand why the ( would drop. The translator might have seen it as a
derived noun meaning place of cutting off.

>Among the proposals for the
>latter I have seen "the place of the cut down", "his place of gathering
>troops", and "attacking", for example.

HH: It's probably good to stick with "Megiddo," however. See the evidence
collected in Gesenius-Kautch-Cowley 85v. The LXX translator is often not to
be followed in the later books.

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard