Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Chris and Nel" <wattswestmaas AT eircom.net>]

The last part of this verse namely: ...ET  HaCoCHaViM...is accompanied by a 
tifha accent.  It has been suggested by a pdf document that I found about 
accents (David Robinson and Elisabeth Levy 2002) that the above verse is in 
the most part mistranslated into English by saying that "God made the stars 
also".  When it should in fact be translated to indicate that the writer was 
saying that "The smaller light to rule the night and the The stars to rule 
the night"  implying that the purpose of the tifha is to read the clause: 
"rule the night" Twice!

I am not trying to be pedantic here, but since I am learning to get to grips 
with these accents I am more interested in appreciating the use of the tifha 
at this point.

Personally (before I understood the accents) I read this verse as to mean 
that God made the lesser light to rule the night 'Along with the stars also' 
to rule the night based on interpreting the 'ET' before HaCoCHaViM as 
'With', and for the fact that it seems to be too much of an awkward 
afterthought to have it placed at the end of the sentence if it were to mean 
simply that: "Oh yes and God made the stars also"!

Your comments will as always be appreciated and I will reply,

Thankyou

Chris Watts
S. Ireland.