Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

James, I don't know what text you're using, but in my BHS, verse 3 says:
"And he said, ADONAI...", spelled out, NOT YHWH. The narrator lets us know
that it was YHWH who appeared, but Abram doesn't know it until verse 10. In
verse 9, the three still address Abram as three people, "and they said...".
In verse 10, it's suddenly "and HE said...". This is the point at which
Abram realizes that it's God who's talking.

Yigal
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>
To: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
Cc: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2005 11:32 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] 2Sam24:1 v. Gen18:1-3


> Peter wrote:
> although plural in form, just like Elohim. But when referring to humans,
> adonay is plural "my masters", whereas adoni is singular "my master".
> This is quite regular: -i is the basic 1st person singular possessive
> suffix, but when added to a plural which would otherwise by -im,
> construct -ey, the suffixes contract together resulting in -ay.
> END QUOTE
>
> JCR: Yes!Ican see your point. However, the text clearly uses the
tetragramatton here and it is clear that
> Abram called the messengers YHWH and this pattern of subtituting
messengers for yhwh and vice versa is
> recurrent in the torah. Seeing as the text clearly adresses them as YHWH
it seems pointless to argue that
> Abram was adressing them as sirs.
>
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