Biblical Hebrew Forum

["B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com>]

Hi Yonah,

Yonah Mishael wrote:
> Bryan,
>
> I think that in this particular situation, it is an idiom for the idea
> of the arrival of the appropriate time for something. In other words,
> HaShem is saying that the proper time for the destruction of all
> living things had arrived. 

I think you are stating here the common understanding of the idiom, 
which I understand, but I think there is another possible understanding.
> It doesn't have anything to do with "the
> end" having an audience with HaShem. 

I didn't mean to say that the end had an audience.  If the idiom _labo' 
lipney_ is typically used of someone coming into the audience of a great 
authority, a certain kind of baggage comes along with the Hebrew 
writier's use of the idiom as as shared with the Hebrew readers.  The 
baggage is that of "a scene of supplication."  Who would I suggest was 
the supplicant?  I don't know.  All that was good, I guess--Noah, the 
elephants, the horses, the bumblebees, the trees, the hills, the sky.  
The world had become a terrible place and all that was good felt 
threatened.  The earth itself groaned.
> It just means that the
> consequence that people's behaviors had merited was destruction, and
> the proper time for it arrived — and HaShem was, therefore, going into
> action against the world in punishment of their violence and iniquity.
>
> What do you think?
>   

I think you are right, but I think there are a few glimpses of another 
side to the decision.  The decision to flood the world was one of anger 
and grief at unrighteousness to be sure.  But it was also one of love.  
That is, HaShem loved Noah and the animal kingdom, so He saved them.  So 
maybe even the idiom in question suggests HaShem saved them from a 
violent world before the violent world could destroy all life.  It was 
indeed the proper time for action.

Shalom,
Bryan
> Yonah
>
> On 4/20/07, B. M. Rocine <brocine AT twcny.rr.com> wrote:
>   
> > Hi Karl,
> >
> > How about if we exercise just a bit of imagination in reading the poetry
> > and see the human supplicants that come as "required attachments" to the
> > groan and the petition?
> >
> > I believe the technical name for the figures in verses you quote is
> > metonymy.  The two vv. in Psa are very much about gaining an audience
> > with YHWH.
> >
> > Shalom,
> > Bryan
> >     
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--
B.M. Rocine
Living Word Church
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