Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Trevor Peterson <06PETERSON AT cua.edu>]

Incidentally, some of you might be interested in the article in JSS by Marcus 
Zehnder, which addresses this subject of variable gender. I haven't yet read 
it myself, but I did hear his presentation of the material at SBL two years 
ago. There is an abstract at 
http://www3.oup.co.uk/semitj/hdb/Volume_49/Issue_01/490021.sgm.abs.html

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics

>===== Original Message From "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il> =====
>Hi Chris,
>
>While the word "Emun" in Deut. 32:20, which seems to be a masculine of
>"Emunah", seems unique, the feminine is used in verse 4. Isaiah 25:1 uses
>both - "Emunah Omen". And the masc. plural "Emunim" is used 6 times, as well
>as the construct "Emuney" in 2 Sam. 20:19.
>
>Coming back to Deut. 32:20, my guess is that "Emun" is not really masculine,
>but simply a cut-off form of Emunah, which the poet used to fit the metre.
>
>Place names can be either masculine or feminine, but remember that both
>"city" (Ir and "land" )Erec are feminine.
>
>Yigal
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "wattswestmaas" <wattswestmaas AT eircom.net>
>To: "B-Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>Sent: Friday, August 06, 2004 2:03 PM
>Subject: [b-hebrew] Feminine of noun abstacts that stand alone.
>
>
>> A two part question,,,
>>
>> Does the FEMINIE of a noun (especially when in most instances the noun is
>> descended directly from the verb) sometimes carry the abstract idea of a
>> more concrete definition?   I also think on some of the place names in
>both
>> exodus and numbers that are in the feminine, when a masculine would seem
>> just as appropriate.
>>
>> My second question INDIRECTLY related asks why the word for 'faith' in
>Deut
>> 32:20 is masculine since this is the ONLY occurence of the word in Masc,
>and
>> I see no grammatical reason for this.  I have an archaic definition of the
>> words in both masc and fem that say the former implies 'Established' and
>the
>> latter 'to be fimly convinced'' but this is an after the fact matter and a
>> classic tautology.
>>
>> Thankyou Chris.
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
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