Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

Harold,

It appears to me that LA-MO is but an archaic reversed variant of LA- 
HEM, With O = HU replacing E = I = HI. I see the personal pronoun  
HEM, 'they', as the composition HEM = HIM = H-I-M including the two  
substantives, or markers of existence, HA and AM. The first I  
recognize as being the essential component of the root HYH, 'was',  
which is just a variant of the root XYH, 'live'. The second  
substantive is akin to the English 'am'. The abbreviated form -IM of  
HEM serves in Hebrew as the male plural indicator as in BAT-IM = BAT- 
HEM = 'house they' = 'houses'.
I think LAMO should be written with an O for the personal pronoun HU,  
and not with a W, that may be misconstrued as standing for the  
substantive AW-WA, corresponding to the English 'be'.
I agree with you that L-MO of Job 40:4 is not LA-MO.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Jul 10, 2007, at 10:41 PM, Harold Holmyard wrote:

> Dear Karl,
> > I used to think that the -MW suffix always referred to the third
> > person indefinite number, but when I was recently analyzing Job 40:4,
> > I came to the realization that the subject of the -MW suffix was Job
> > himself, in the first person. Now I'll have to go back and see if  
> > this
> > is the only usage that is not third person, or if there are others as
> > well. This is a new assignment for me.
>
> Job 40:4 is a bit different because the -MW suffix has no pronominal
> value. LMW is functioning as a poetic alternative for the  
> preposition L.
> It is a frequent usage, appearing 55 times according to BDB.
>
> Yours,
> Harold Holmyard
>
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew