Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 24/06/2005 05:32, Steve Miller wrote:

> ...
>
> From: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
>  
>
> > Karl, you have an excellent point, although your apparent emendation of
> > )DM "man" to )DMH "soil" is unnecessary. There is an obvious word play
> > between )DMH, the soil to which the speaker is now a slave [ (BD -
> > pointed in MT as (OBED rather than (EBED but still suggesting work as a
> > slave], and )DM, the person who caused that "slavery" perhaps by
> > bringing up the young person on a farm. So the meaning is something like
> > "I am a worker of the land, that is what people have made me", but of
> > course that misses the word play.
> >    
>
> Peter,
> thanks very much for all your posts. In your translation, you have been
> careful to keep the causitive sense, but I think it loses the meaning of
> QNH. There is no possessing or aquiring. It is similar to the KJV.
>
>  
I take your point. I wondered whether to suggest something like "I was 
apprenticed to the ground" which would imply someone acquiring him as an 
apprentice. I certainly wasn't ruling out real slavery or serfdom, 
although of course most agricultural slaves would have been born as such 
rather than actually bought. Remember that this is in the post-exilic 
period, when many Israelites would have been more or less agricultural 
slaves in their places of exile.

On the other hand, I accept the arguments that QNH does not always imply 
purchase. It does seem to be used sometimes of creation. Also the 
meaning of one binyan or stem type is not always a reliable guide to the 
meaning of another, although of course we have nothing else to go on in 
this unique occurrence.

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



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