Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Steve Miller wrote:
> Re. Hag 2:7. I believe it should be translated "the desire of all 
> thenations shall come", not "the desirable things of the nations shall 
> come"because "desire" is singular. The verb "come" is plural, which I 
> thinkindicates that the desire of all the nations is actually God Himself.

HH: This seems like an ad hoc explanation of the grammatical  
phenomenon. J. Alec Motyer ( _Haggai_ in _The Minor Prophets_, ed. 
Thomas Edward McComisky, 3:991) finds the plural verb a real hindrance 
to the Messianic interpretation since the verb requires a plural 
subject. He thinks we could say with GKC #145b, d that the plural verb 
points to "chemdath" being taken as a collective: "treasures." Or he 
thinks with GKC #124r we can suppose that, since "chemdath" is in 
construction with "goyim," the whole phrase can be taken as a plural. He 
does not feel that it is necessary to emend the first noun "chemdath" to 
a plural as BHS suggests. Both of his suggestions are well-attested 
grammatical phenomena and give better solutions to Hag 2:7 than the one 
offered by Steve.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard