Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>]

Scott McAliley wrote:


>   When they were told to eat of every tree in the garden(which 
> includes the tree of life), most translations seem to render it 
> something like, "Of any of the trees, you may freely eat", but if the 
> two tenses of die are an emphatic statement about death, are the two 
> "eat"s not an emphatic command to eat from ALL of the trees, not 
> simply a license to eat from ANY?

HH: If you are interested in why translations come 
up with the results they do, you can invest into 
buying grammatical commentaries on biblical books. 
You can find them in bookstores, especially 
Christian bookstores. Here is a list of some 
commentaries on Genesis. The better ones will 
explain the grammar in places like this:

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/easy_find/460303559?Ntk=keywords&Ntt=Genesis&action=Search&N=0&Ne=0&event=ESRCN&nav_search=1&cms=1&Go.x=24&Go.y=7&Go=Go

You can even find such commentaries at Amazon.com 
by typing in Genesis, but a lot more of the titles 
will be unrelated to the biblical book:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/103-9956806-9934205?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Genesis&Go.x=5&Go.y=9&Go=Go

If you want any suggestions about these books, 
please contact me offlist.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard