Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 23/08/2005 01:45, Karl Randolph wrote:

> ...
>
> > Well, the first clause in this verse starts at the beginning and 
> > continues until XESED HU', with 'ASHER introducing a clause 
> > subordinate to this one. The sentence structure in fact seems to 
> > state that it is the man who is XESED, but it could be interpreted 
> > that the whole situation is so descibed. But I don't see that the 
> > meaning could a description of what follows, which is separated off 
> > by the VAV conjunction attached to a QATAL verb (i.e. WEQATAL) 
> > which always indicates a new clause.
> >
> >    
> Looking at the verse, the )$R precedes the XSD HW) so that 
> the latter is either part of the subordinate clause, or 
> the introduction to the following clause. ...

Not at all. )$R introduces a subordinate clause which is very often 
embedded within the main clause. And that seems to be what is happening 
here (Lev 20:17), at the formal syntactical level, literally "A man {who 
takes his sister, daughter of his father or daughter of his mother and 
sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness} he/it is XESED." {...} 
indicates the embedded clause. Formally HU' is a resumptive pronoun 
referring back to the man.

> ... I read it as the 
> latter.
>
> Secondly, does the WAW prefix on a verb always indicate a 
> new clause, ...

This is my understanding.

> ... or only when affixed on a Qatal? I read the WAW 
> to have the same force as on the final verb in Isaiah 53:2. ...

I would read this as a separate clause "(he had) no appearance ... we 
desired him". The semantic link between these clauses is a difficult 
question.

> ... 
> On a related issue, when I see applications of a noun that 
> is used well over 100 times in Tanakh, all of them having 
> one meaning and only once apparently having a different and 
> opposite meaning, I then question why? Is this a special 
> figure of speach? Did I misunderstand the text? Is there 
> possible copyest error? Is this a loan word from another 
> language that just happened to have the same form as a 
> previous lexeme in the language (though in this case, with 
> Torah being the earliest section of Tanakh, it is very 
> unlikely)? Are we looking at an unusual though acceptable 
> grammatical construct? Is this slang? In short, a one time 
> opposite use raises many red flags.
>  

I agree with you, Karl. I am not like Harold, relying on authorities. 
But I have looked at the context of these three uses of XSD, and I 
cannot see a way in which they are not a very different sense of the 
word than the typical one - which is itself rather diverse. But one 
thing I understand but you don't seem to, is that in Hebrew like every 
other language many words have very diverse meanings, and it is 
dangerous to assume otherwise.

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



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