Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

On Dec 19, 2007 3:36 PM, K Randolph wrote:

> > > Other solutions include: mtnh as an adjective of lb, "calm, restrained"
> > > and lb read as feminine as in Prov 12:25
>
> ?? D)GH is a feminine noun, not an adjective in Proverbs 12:25. LB is still
> masculine. I'm not perfect, I make mistakes, but this is elementary: the
> grammar, syntax, context, etc. all point to the fact that the Hebrew it
> reads, "Anxiety in a heart ..."

BHQ does call it "exceptional feminine."  Apparently, the idea is that lb
acts not only as the indirect object but also as the direct object.  "Anxiety
in the heart overpowers [the heart], and a good works makes [the heart]
happy."  I only provided it to complete the review of suggestions as offered
by BHQ.  I agree that this is not a particularly persuasive suggestion.

> MTNYM referring to loins, both literally and as a symbol of strength and
> vigor, is always found in plural, never singular in Tanakh.

But this doesn't mean that Hebrew didn't also have a singular, and this is
possibly an attestation of it, and even that the singular may have dropped out
of use and was corrected elsewhere to a dual.

> However, MTN as well as MTNH refer to "gift", and TNH is a verb attested to
> in Tanakh.
>
> Whatever BHQ is, that it noted three oddities should have been a red flag
> that they were going up the wrong path. In #1 that MTNH is taken as feminine
> means that it cannot be the subject of WY)BD, rather that should point back
> to the first part of the parallelism for the masculine subject found there,
> as is common in Hebrew poetry. Point #2 indicates what follows is the object
> of the verb. Point #3 is not that important, as it is found elsewhere as
> well.

BHQ is the fifth edition of the Biblia Hebraica series, Biblia Hebraica 
Quinta.

All three oddities are attested elsewhere in the Bible.  It's the
presence of all
three together (and BHQ focuses on the first two together) that suggests a
straightforward reading common to most commentaries is wrong.  You
yourself corrected yourself, and now you read it also as a construct chain,
but you have to settle for either "narrating heart" or "heart of a
gift."  This is
still far-fetched.

Reading mtwn, the word is parallel to xkm, and "wy)bd lb" to "yhwll".  This
makes perfect sense.

Yitzhak Sapir