Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Peter:

I agree with you that the Greek has this reading. But is that the reading 
that the translator intended? Or did he mess up the Greek to try to 
communicate a Hebrew idea?

In particular, who is the AUTWi? Judah? Can't be, as he is the one holding 
the objects in the first place. Or does this mean he will hold the objects 
until all that prophesied about him will come to a close, meaning that when 
Judah no longer has those objects, that is the end of prophecy?

As to my reading of the Hebrew, I understand it as a contraction of )$R LW in 
the same manner as Ezekiel 21:32 (also previously cited in reference to this 
verse) where the )$R LW is the subject of the verb. This subject, directly 
translated from Hebrew to Greek would be in dative, not nominative as 
expected for Greek.

Upon later thought, if I were the translator of the passage, I would have 
stated hEOS AN ELQHi AUTOS TOU TA APOKEIMENA recognizing that here in this 
verse the LH (archaic form of LW ) actually has a genetive emphasis, 
signifying ownership. Further that the objects owned are those mentioned as 
the subjects of the main sentence.

Thinking out loud some random thoughts, probably foot planted firmly in mouth 
  ;-)

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>

> But, in partial answer to Karl, the Greek could mean "until that 
> which is reserved / destined for him comes", in other words with 
> AUTWi as an indirect object of the participle APOKEIMENA. And that 
> just might reflect an understanding of the Hebrew $YLH as the 
> relative $- (= Aramaic DIY) and LW = "to him", in other words the 
> combination as equivalent to modern Hebrew $LW "belonging to him".
> 
> A Greek rendering of "until comes the one to whom they belong" 
> would have to have a masculine (or feminine) singular subject, 
> either a pronoun like AUTOS or hOS, or more likely a participle 
> meaning something like "owner". The Greek could I suppose be hEWS 
> AN ELQHi AUTOS hWi APOKEIMONTAI, literally "until comes he to whom 
> they are reserved/destined", although that leaves quite 
> unsepecified what is reserved or destined. But in the sentence as 
> it stands what will come is unambiguously the reserved/destined 
> things, not any person.
> 
> As for your last point "Hebrew allows the equivelant of the dative 
> as the subject of the verb", what do you mean? If you can give an 
> example of this in Hebrew, I might understand what Greek 
> construction you have in mind. Are you thinking in terms of the $LW 
> type of construction which might be understood as "that which 
> belongs to him" and used as a subject? But if you have this sense 
> in mind, we have little disagreement about the meaning of the verse.
> 
> -- Peter Kirk
> peter AT qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/
-- 
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