Biblical Hebrew Forum

[CS Bartholomew <jacksonpollock AT earthlink.net>]

On 4/24/04 8:06 AM, "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com> wrote:

>> Another example is how references in the text to
>> the ìQueen of Heavenî (mele'kheth ha-shamayim,
>> or maybe even malkat ha-shamayim) were corrupted
>> by the punctuation to ìthe host of heavenî
>> (melekheth ha-shamayim). (Jeremiah 7:18;
>> 44:17-19,25)
> 
> HH: My lexicons say that the form in the text of
> BHS, MeLeKeT, is an unusual form meaning queen,
> not host. You must be speaking of the variant
> forms. I am not even sure that ML)KT means
> "host." You yourself seem to be saying that ML)KT
> means "queen.": "ìQueen of Heavenî (mele'kheth
> ha-shamayim)." The LXX here has STRATIA, which
> means "host." I don't know how the LXX derived
> STRATIA, but it may be that they took the variant
> ML)KT to represent MeLa)KaH, meaning workmanship
> or property, from L)K, and translated it loosely
> as "host."
> 
> Yours,
> Harold Holmyard

Harold,

LEH (1st ed) shows two conjectures:

stratia,-as+   
    *Jer 7:18 te stratia tou ouranou to the host of heaven ? cb) h#myM  or
lmmlkt h#myM for MT lmlkt h#myM to the queen of heaven
  
But what is lmmlkt?


greetings,
Clay Bartholomew