Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dear Vadim,

> Well, since the argument started to deviate into a messianic debate, may I
> suggest to concentrate, to begin with, on a single word:
>
> bemotav
>
> It is uniformly translated as
>
> in his death
>
> How so? The word is in plural in every mss, even in Qumran.
>
> So, it is either,
>
> in his deathS,
>
> or, from boma,
>
> his altars
>
> I would love to read any arguments to the contrary.

HH: This is understood by F. Delitzsch to be a pluralis 
exaggerativus. Forms like it occur in Ezek 28:8,10 and Jer 16:4. It 
would be used to indicate a violent death, the pain of which makes it 
like dying more than once. You can also call it an intensive plural; 
see Gesenius-Kautzsch-Cowley 124, particularly 124e, which states 
that there are a number of plurals, found almost exclusively in 
poetry (sometimes along with the singular), which are evidently 
intended to intensify the idea of the stem (plural of amplification).

HH: Qumran apparently has BWMTW, which John Oswalt and BHS suspect 
involves a misplaced W, so that it should be BMWTW, which would 
involve a singular form.

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard