Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 15/12/2004 16:37, Harold R. Holmyard III wrote:

> Dear Yigal,
>
> > According to Joshua 7:4, Joshua's first attempt at capturing Ai was 
> > made with ke$lo$et alapim i$, "about three thousand men". In the next 
> > verse, the men of Ai smote of them ke$lo$im ve$iSah i$, "about thirty 
> > six men".
> >
> > The prefix kaph is usually translated "like", "about" and so on. 
> > However in this context, "about 36" does not make sense. 36 is an 
> > exact number.
>
>
> HH: Maybe they knew that thirty-six men died, but they were not sure 
> whether the men of Ai were directly responsible for all the deaths. 
> Perhaps someone could have mistakenly run off a cliff or something.


A Google search for "about thirty six" (including quotation marks) shows 
that even modern English authors don't consider this kind of expression 
nonsensical. Consider the following:

From http://www.worldwar2history.info/Midway/war.html:

> At the time the new code first appeared on June 1, 1939, the U.S. 
> Navy's Washington code breaking staff had grown to about thirty-six hands.


From http://www.cybervillage.com/ocs/sports.htm:

>         This year about thirty-six boys and girls signed up.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/