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  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Definite Article 7:14
  • Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 10:07:26 -0400

Harold,

Indeed in Genesis 42:23 HA-MELIC is rendered "an interpreter", but I think you will agree with me that this entails the tacit assumption that more than one interpreter was available. Interestingly enough it is so also in English: " The president was there and also a senator".

In Genesis 14:13 HA-PALIT is rendered "one that had escaped", probably to add an explanation for the unusual word PALIT.

In Numbers 11:27 HA-NAAR is rendered "a young man", possibly to indicate the translators belief that it was a random act by some random boy.

So in 2 Sam 15:13.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Mar 22, 2007, at 7:21 PM, Harold Holmyard wrote:

Dear Joseph,

If you don't like Gesenius, I will give you the same information from
Waltke-O'Connor, Biblical Hebrew Syntax (1990) #15.5.1e, quoting:

The article may also mark nouns definite in the imagination, designating
either a particular person or thing necessarily understood to be present
or vividly portraying someone or something whose identity is not
otherwise indicated . . . . In some cases the proper English rendering
is indefinite:

Gen 42:23 _An interpreter_ was between them.

Gen 18:7 He gave (it) to _a servant_.

Gen 14:13 _One who had escaped_ came.

Num 11:27 _A young man_ came.

2 Sam 15:13 _A messenger_ came.

This usage is also found in the expression WYHY HYWM

1 Sam 1:4 _One day_ Elkanah came to sacrifice.

The analogous English constructions should not mislead: all these
occurrences, and others like them, are definite in Hebrew.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard
"Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar_ treats the definite article here as special

but as an example of a category of usage (section #126 q-r). They say:

"Peculiar to Hebrew is the employment of the article to denote a single

person or thing (primarily one which is as yet unknown, and therefore

not capable of being defined) as being present in the mind under given

circumstances. In such cases in English the indefinite article is mostly

used."



The go on to speak particularly of this article in Isaiah 7:14: "H (LMH,

i.e., the particular maiden, through whom the prophet's announcement

shall be fulfilled; we should say "a maiden."



For other examples of this class of usage they give, among others, Gen

42:23; 1 Kings 19:9; Job 9:31.



Yours,

Harold Holmyard"

Gesenius is dated, so in my opinion it should generally not be used. The
above is an example of why. That the Hebrew word for the definite article
would sometimes have a meaning of the indefinite article is a
contradiction. Specifically here Gesenius changed his opinion in general
regarding the meaning of the Hebrew definite article as well as its
application to 7:14 (that the definite article is indeed intended) in a
subsequent publication.

Joseph




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