Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 11/27/05, Karl Randolph wrote:
> >
> > There is no QN in 11a.
>
> Puh-leeze! Don't be such a nitpicker!

The fact that this was your intention became
clear to me after I sent my response.  I still think
it is wrong to so divide words from their suffixes,
especially where in GZLYW the suffix also
conveys the plural number of the word.

> Better make a translation of all three verses,
> as it appears that you understand several of
> the words differently than I. If so, that
> explains why I have trouble following your
> argument in this message.

To take up the JPS translation and adapt it:
(10b) He compassed him about, He cared for him,
He kept him as the apple of His eye.
(11) like the Eagle that stirreth up its nest,
hovereth over its young,
He shall spread His wings and take him,
Bear him upon His pinion.

The JPS evidently interprets 11c-d to refer to the
eagle still, but I think it is best to see it as a
reference to God/nation while the image of God
as eagle is fresh in our minds.  The English
allows us to differentiate between the eagle and
God through the use of the masculine pronoun
(his, its) but this is just a "treat" (for good or for
bad) in English and not part of the original.

Perhaps it would help to understand how you
translate the verses.

> There are examples of lamed-he verbs with
> nouns from the same root lacking any
> indication of the he, such as CW command
> from the same root as CWH to command.

The above is practically an hapax legomenon.  It
is used nine times but in 8/9 of the cases it is
apparently used in a phrase to describe something
nonsensical, but even if not, definitely not something
from which we cannot ascertain the meaning.  In the
last case, its meaning is not used in parallelism, nor
is its meaning clearly a "command" and in fact, it
has been interpreted to derive either from a lamed-
aleph root CW) or to be a phonetic variant of $W).
To add to all the above, the root CWH is used as a
Piel, not a Qal.  Do you have any clear example of a
Qal verb, with a lamed-he/yod where the first two
letters of the root are used as an independent
noun?

Yitzhak Sapir