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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Judges 16:30 - Verb with no use, MY PROBLEM!

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: Chris and Nel <wattswestmaas AT eircom.net>
  • Cc: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Judges 16:30 - Verb with no use, MY PROBLEM!
  • Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 18:34:39 +0100

On 03/10/2006 18:08, Chris and Nel wrote:
... I am so used to
reading sentences without "to be " in them that I still can not fathom its purpose here, considering that without it I actually arrived at the correct translation without looking at the English.

Now can someone be kind enough pleeeease..... to relieve me of my making a fool of
myself on this board?

The distinction may be that sentences in which "to be" is omitted are usually (always?) stative, indicating a continuing state, like English "be", whereas those starting with WAYHIY, and here with its plural form WAYIHYUW, indicate actions, like English "became". Thus a literal translation would be "And the dead... became more than the dead...". The meaning is of course "More people died... than...", an action. A translation like Kelton's "Those who were dead ... *were* many, more than..." is misleading because it suggests a state, a count of bodies already dead. But in fact we have an action here, a large number of people dying. (Dare I suggest a prototype of today's suicide bombers, except here we have an Israelite killing Gentiles in Gaza?)

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail: peter AT qaya.org
Blog: http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/





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