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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Proverbs 5:16 - a declaration or a question ?

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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Proverbs 5:16 - a declaration or a question ?
  • Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 06:25:13 -0600

Dear Peter,

...
HH: There is no problem with the verb meaning "be dispersed." It is a metonymy. ...


I agree that there is a metonymy or extended sense of the verb.

HH: I meant that there was a metonymy with the noun "springs." The springs themselves are not dispersed. it is the water from the springs that is. So "springs" are put for what they produce, water.

Should your springs overflow in the streets,

Correct, maybe, but not they don't necessarily recognise a metonymy. In BDB there are two different roots PWC, one glossed as "be dispersed, scattered", and the other as "flow, overflow", with this verse and Zec 1:17 given as examples. But then this is more likely an extended sense than a separate root.

HH: Right, it does look like an extended sense, even though BDB lists it as a separate root. If water is dispersed, it normally flows. If blessings "are scattered abroad" ( a meaning for PWC 1), we can say that they flow.

The HCSB has:

Should your springs flow in the streets.

The same applies here. Presumably the question mark has been dropped.

HH: That's my mistake. The HCSB sentence ends in a question mark. I should have used a comma, as I did with the NIV line above.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard





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