Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>
To: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2004 3:23 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] What means, "beyn mayim lamayim"?


> On Monday 14 June 2004 16:01, Yigal Levin wrote:
> > > > > > In Genesis, 1:6, it says that "there was divided" "among/
> > > >
> > > > between
> > > >
> > > > > > waters
> > > > > > to/for the waters (vayihiy or viyih mav'diyl, beyn mayi'm
> > > > > > lamayi'ym.)
> > > > > >
> > > > > > How does this translate?
> > > >
> > > > Folks: might the word "mavdil" not be a noun, "divider" - "and the
> > > > was (or
> > > > 'came to be') a DIVIDER between water and water"?
> > > >
> > > > Yigal
> > >
> > > _____________
> > >
> > > Why not?  Isn't a participle by definition a verbal adjective and can
be
> > > used as a noun?
> > >
> > > gfsomsel
> >
> > Yes, but I was thinking of something more concrete - that God reated the
> > earth as a physical divider between the upper and lower waters.
> >
> > Yigal
>
> Several years ago I had an extensive go-around with a person who tried to
say
> that the earth's crust was the raqia`.  Is this what you are saying?
Because
> I'm not sure the text will support such an idea.
>
> --
> Dave Washburn

No, I realize that. Maybe the idea is that the "divider" was something else,
an independant entity. I agree with the picture of the raqia' as a kind of
"hammered out" dome, into which the sun, moon and stars were stuck, and
which held the upper waters (unless it leaked, hence rain).

Anyway just an idea, not a thought-out cosmology.

Yigal