Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dr. Joel M. Hoffman" <joel AT exc.com>]

>> I did not suggest that Hebrew dative is consistently accusative; but after 
>> "become" it most certainly is.
>
>It is ablative, anyway, in the traditional reading, not accusative.
>Consistently? Ok, the first example ihih le I see, Gen17:18, "That Ishmael 
>might live for you!" (Pefectly dative in Russian, ÐÏÓ×ÑÝÅÎ ÔÅÂÅ) I looked at 
>the translation, and curiously, it is in the ablative, "before you," totally 
>unwarranted.

I'm not sure how I can be clearer.

The issue is the proposition L used in conjunction with "become."
Gen17:18 is irrelevant.  The point is that prepositions are
meaningless in isolation; they combine with verbs and other words to
create a composite meaning.

(Also, the word translated "before you" (in NKJ) is LFANECHA, not
LCHA.  It seems fine to me.)

>> Also, what do you think "became for a living soul" means?   "He
>> became.  And the reason he did that is to benefit a living soul"?
>> Surely not.
>
>That is an altogether different issue. We might understand the phrase or 

Here I fear that you have misunderstood how translation works.
Translating words without regard for what they mean is just bad
translation, though often good religion.  If you care, I can point in
the direction of some material on translation that may help.

-Joel M. Hoffman
 http://www.exc.com/JoelHoffman