Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Yitzhak,

> But perhaps if Isaiah knew only a little Aramaic he managed to put
> together a pseudo-Aramaic sentence with Aramaic words but Hebrew
> structure. I have seen sentences of this type on lists like this, from
> people whose English is not very good but they are able to choose
> correct English words. I'm not saying that this is the case with this
> verse as I have not looked at the passage in detail. But it is another
> possibility to be considered.
>  
>
>
> The word ")yk" is written "hyk" in Aramaic.
> The word ng& has no counterpart in Aramaic.
> The word mdhbh could be a place name and hence could easily
> represent a different phonology than the rest of the sentence.
> There is thus no reason to consider Aramaic influence.
>  

HH: I agree. All the words are common Hebrew except the last. The last 
does appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and a variant reading appears in 
the Qumran Isaiah scroll. The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew cites three 
occurrences of MDHBH in the Dead Sea Scrolls. MDHBH means "distress, 
calamity."

Yours,
Harold Holmyard