Biblical Hebrew Forum

["VC" <vadim_lv AT center-tv.net>]

Dear Reinier,

> > I'm not sure how do you read Is23:2, but it seems to me that
> > Zidonians crossed the sea to replenish the islanders. So the
> > islands are offshore. cf. big waters in the next verse.
>
> I agree that that is a possible reading too. Mine is just as possible. I
> have eight English versions before me here, including NJPS, who all
> follow the same interpretation, interpreting SOXER as "trader" and the
> phrase SOXER TSIDON "trader of Sidon" as an apposition to YOSHEBEY )I.
> Unless they are all wrong, of course.

I can imagine all of them wrong

> > Hebrew is not a dead language, nor it had ever been. A line
> > of Hebrew-speaking Jews never ceased in millennia. This is
> > the oldest living language. Consider that Masorets knew even
> > the cantillations; how much more certainly they knew the
> > meaning of the words! If for millennia islands were islands,
> > then there is a very high burden, indeed, to translate them
> > as coastland.
>
> Who says islands were islands for millenia?

The folks who compiled modern dictionaries.

> > I don't take an appeal to the translation authorities, such
> > as NJPS, as an argument.
>
> "Island" is a translation already. On whose authority?

"By authority of the people"  :) If we disregard them, then we don't not who
is elokim


Best regards,

Vadim