Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

John:

That's a good question. It's questions like these that make me look up
and learn.

While (L DBR על דבר as an idiom meaning "for the sake of" or "because
of" occurs over 30 times in Tanakh, you are right in questioning if
this is a case where this use is that of the idiom or is it a
different use of the words?

I suspect that in this use it is not idiomatic, rather should be
translated as "upon the expressing of truth and justice".

Thanks for the question.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Nov 19, 2007 10:23 PM,  <JBarach AT aol.com> wrote:
> B-Haverim --
>
> In Psalm 45:5, what is the meaning of  על־דבר־אמת (I hope the Hebrew
> comes through in this e-mail!)?  It appears that most people translate  
> על־דבר
>  as "for the sake of" or "because of."  Is that the sense of this  phrase?
>
> Help!
>
> John