Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jerry Shepherd" <jerry.shepherd AT taylor-edu.ca>]

It seems to me that the greatest problem with trying to trying to
translate this verse with the proposed alternative is that the only way
the alternative can work is by taking what is most likely to be
understood as a verbless clause with accompanying complement of
specification and turning it into two independent clauses: "Blessed is
the nation whose God is Yahweh.  The people chose for an inheritance for
itself."  As mentioned in other responses, you are left without an
object for bachar in the B line, and as well it messes up the intention
of applying ashre to both hagoy and ha'am: "Blessed is the nation whose
God is Yahwey; blessed the nation he chose for an inheritance for
himself." Even though this is poetry, and therefore all kinds of rules
get broken, in this case, almost certainly, if the psalmist had wanted
to specify that the ha'am does the choosing, there would have been an
'asher inserted after ha'am.

 

Jerry

 

Dr. Jerry E. Shepherd

Associate Professor of Old Testament

Taylor Seminary

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