Biblical Hebrew Forum

[dwashbur AT nyx.net]

Thanks for weighing in on this, Bryan:

On 9 Nov 2007 at 17:45, B. M. Rocine wrote:

> 
> Hi men,
> 
> Contrary to Speiser, I say the vowel pointing of bammaqom has little to 
> do with this business.  Moses writes, vayyiphga` bammaqom vayyalen sham 
> vayyiqqax me'abney hammaqom.  See how the writer tracks the place in 
> three successive clauses:  bammaqom...sham...hammaqom.   Clearly the 
> place is monumental in importance.  It is a *certain place*. 
> 
> In fact, if the setting is not important and specific in the narrative, 
> why does the writer need to even mention that Jacob happened upon *a* 
> place or *the* place where he stayed the night?  For the writer to 
> mention the obvious here is to highlight the significant. 
> 
> I think the rules of cooperation and relevance that exist between a 
> writer and his audience strongly indicate that it was a "certain place."
> 
> I don't imagine this has much to do with Jim's hypothesis one way or the 
> other, a hypothesis which I also do *not* think has "a place" in the 
> b-hebrew forum.

I'm not sure whether it has that much to do with his hypothesis or not, 
except that in his 
view, the distance of the journey is more significant than the place, hence 
it couldn't have 
been the Bethel of other passages unless Jacob was riding a Harley or 
something (correct 
me if I've got this wrong, Jim).  My argument, and I think you just agreed, 
is that the 
grammar emphasizes that it was a particularly significant place and doesn't 
include any time 
indicators.  The actual location of Jacob's Bethel doesn't matter much to me, 
which is why 
I've been trying to keep things more or less related to the language of the 
passage.

Dave Washburn
As a French hippie might say, "Je ne creuse pas!"