Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Herman Meester <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Herman Meester <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>
Date: 20-nov-2005 15:37
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Preposition "el"
To: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>


Michael, to make it even simpler,
Derekh )Artzam is just a construct, lit. "the way of their land" so
here in traditional Hebrew grammar we have no preposition. Translation
by means of a preposition is another matter altogether. Cf.
Latin/English "via" which means "way, road" but in a combinations like
"(I travel) via Rome" we have a preposition "via" that had been
originally a noun with a "genitive" noun in apposition. Forgive me if
I'm not telling you anything new. I think at all times we have to
distinguish the Hebrew grammar from the source language grammar when
we translate; the two rarely are the same.
Regards
Herman

2005/11/20, Harold R. Holmyard III <hholmyard AT ont.com>:
> Dear Michael,
>
> >Hello Mr. Holmyard,
> >
> >For example, in 1 Kings 8:29,35,38, it says "el-ha bait" and also
> >"el-ha maqom" to express the term, "toward this house" or "toward
> >this place". But, 1 Kings 8:48, the term "derech" is ued to indicate
> >the word "toward".
> >
> >"Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com> wrote:
> >
> >Dear Michael,
> >
> >>  I have a question about the preposition "el", aleph lamed, and
> >>which means "to, toward". Can Biblical Hebrew prepositions, in this
> >  >case "el" connect a verb to more than one noun?
>
>
> I'm still not sure what your question is about, but in verse 48 there
> are multiple objects for the word DRK, not only "their land" but also
> "the city" and "the house." In verse 29 there are two occurrences of
> )L with one verb, but in fact the two are in apposition to one
> another.
>
> One verb can take )L more than once to refer to two different nouns.
> I thought you were going to ask whether one preposition could take
> more than one object. I would think so, and DRK suggests as much. Of
> course, it is a noun, but it is functioning in 1 Kgs 8:48 as "in the
> direction of," so almost as a preposition. When this happens in
> poetry, we call it a "double duty preposition."
>
>                                         Yours,
>                                         Harold Holmyard
>
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