Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dear Karl,

> M(YNTYK as a simple plural of (YN meaning eyes? Almost all the time 
> (YN is in dual. But is it not a feminine noun, so the simple plural 
> would end in -WT ? Correct me if I am wrong.

HH: That's right, but the only attested example of it is Hos 10:10, 
where the Qere reading has changed the word from "eye" to "sin."

> That would make the translation "Be dispersed away from your eyes 
> outwards into the broad streets (broad areas?) the channels of 
> water", in other words a poetic way of saying not to look at other 
> sources, so within the context not to be looking at other women?

HH: This does not work for me. Perhaps some other list members can 
approve it for you, but the water is not a symbol of other women but 
of the man's own possession. Nor does the translation work, for it 
does not function on a literal level. Nobody disperses channels of 
water away from someone's eyes. So it cannot work on the figurative 
level. You have tried to combine the literal with the figurative. The 
common translation, which you have spurned, although it makes 
perfectly good sense and is grammatically possible, works on both a 
literal level and a figurative level.

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard


> Karl W. Randolph.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
> >  HH: The NIV takes it as a question, as does the HCSB. This goes
> >  back at least as far as the ASV. The problem is that taken as a
> >  declaration, Prov 5:16 would seem to contradict both 5:15 and 5:17,
> >  the verses before and after it. They suggest the value of privacy
> >  and guarding what is one's own, not letting it pour out in the
> >  public streets:
> >
> >  Prov. 5:15 Drink water from your own cistern, running water from
> >  your own well.
> >  Prov. 5:16 Should your springs overflow in the streets, your
> >  streams of water in the public squares?
> >  Prov. 5:17 Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.
> >
> >                                 Yours,
> >                                 Harold Holmyard
> --
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