Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Nov 3, 2007 8:33 AM,  Pere Porta wrote:

> I'm not able to make a good answer to your reasoning below. By saying that
> from a gramatical point of view MWOLEDET (*)  means "female who causes to
> bring forth" I wanted only to help, to cast some light hereon.
>
> In a neutral viewing, "MWOLEDET = female who causes to bring forth" can
> refer either to past times (ancestors) or to future times (descendants). But
> my feeling is that in biblical writings which you are telling on (Joseph and
> his brothers, etc.) it clearly points out to the past. "Relatives, kindred,
> (family?), offspring" are, in my opinion, good words for MWOLEDET.
>
> Sorry for not being able to do more for you.
>
> (*) remark: MWO, not MOW

1) There is no such thing as "mow" or "mwo" in Biblical Hebrew.  The use of
a waw with the vowel [o:] represents [o:], not a combination.  Writing
out [o(:)w]
means that the vocalization would have a holam on the preceding consonant
followed by a waw with a schewa underneath.  Writing out [wo:] would mean the
waw would have a holam and the preceding consonant would have a schewa!

2) The noun moledeth is not directly related to any inflection of the
verb.  This
noun is not used in the singular non-construct form and I think it is
quite possible
that the unmarked form is molɔdɔ or mulɔdɔ on comparison with the
roots ysd / yr$.

3) The noun means relatives, descendants, family, in contrast to the
Modern Hebrew
noun that means birthplace.  It is conceivable that some translations
may use the
Modern Hebrew sense in place of the Biblical sense.

Yitzhak Sapir