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  • From: "JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.anglia.ac.uk>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Deuteronomy 21:23 Who is cursed?
  • Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 18:11:56 +0100

MA:Deuteronomy 21:23

כִּי־קִלְלַת אֱלֹהִים תָּלוּי



Is God the object of scorn because a criminal is hanged or the one who
curses the hanged criminal?

JCR:There are several clues to decoding your question.

1) The clause begins with 'because'
2) Elohim is in a construct relationship

Let's consider them one at a time.

1) The beginning of the clause indicates that we are
looking at the reason for the preceeding clause, the
why that the dead body should not be left to hang all
night. Any translation must therefore be contextually
in line with this simple observation.

2) Elohim here is in the construct relationship. He is
not the subject nor the object of the clause, merely an
adjective describing a quality of the accursed.

In line with these two observations what do you feel
about the NWT rendition?

'because something accursed of God is the one hung up'

I'm sure this English could be smoothed out and made to
better represent natural language but the essence of
the clause seems to be adequately captured.

James Christian Read
BSc Computer Science
thesis1: concept driven machine translation using the Aleppo codex
thesis2: language acquisition simulation
http://www.lamie.org/hebrew




































































































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