Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Mark Eddy" <markeddy AT adams.net>]

kgraham: @Mark:
Hey are you the Mark from AOMIN chat room?  If so it is me osoclasi.  How is
it going?  If not don't worry about this.  

Mark: Nope, never heard of it, never been in a chat room.

> In Psalm 25:17 just about every translation takes the first word ZaROTH as
a 
> construct, depending on LBaBiY, which they then take as the subject of the

> verb HiRCHiYBU. 
kgraham: That is because of the feminine plural construct ending at the end
of SARWT.  That requires that it be taken as a construct chain.

Mark: But that's by no means certain. The LXX understood it as a construct.
But the form is the same as a non-construct plural. The only two other times
that this exact form ZaROTH is used in the Hebrew Bible (Job 5:19 and Psalm
71:20, see also Psalm 46:2; Deut. 31:17 & 21) the form is definitely NOT
construct.
So it seems to me that the most natural reading, which requires no
re-division of the words of the MT, is to take the first three words as a
complete clause with the order: subject-object-verb: Troubles make my heart
wider.
Mark Eddy