Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>]

Dear Isaac,
> Just a brief remark. HA-RA(EB of Isaiah 29:8 is "he who is famished". 
> Notice that this translation does not contain one single "the".

Thanks. This example is not in Ehrensvärd's article, but the author 
would probably treat it as a generic use of the definite article. 
David's point would be that the person here is a generalized person, a 
hypothetical person, while the person in Isa 7:14 seems to be a specific 
person, as is the person in Gen 14:13. So in my thinking, these last 
cases appear to be a special use of the generic article where the 
quality of the person is emphasized and the person is unidentified, even 
though it is in fact a specific individual or thing.

I would have to study the rest of Ehrensärd's article more carefully, 
but he still came across examples he could not really account for. He 
also had to discount some as misprints or "non-functional" uses of the 
article or put them in  categories different than English usage or in 
usages unlike English.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard