Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

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/