Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Ron:

On Dec 20, 2007 1:21 PM, Ron Snider <sarasotapt AT comcast.net> wrote:

> I recognized that I did not phrase my question very well...What I was
> referring to was the verb Piel imperfect 'BD', which is 3ms and the
> final noun MTNH which is the feminine subject.  You have translated as
> though the heart is the subject of the verb, but it is marked with the
> sign of the direct object.  The heart is the object of the gift or
> bribe.  The verse very much appears to be talking about the effects of
> money (extortion and bribery) on a wise man and the fact that he is
> capable of falling to either one.
>

It is now my turn to ask if you have read my responses?

The subject of the verse is "fraud", which is masculine, carried across both
sections of the parallelism that make up the verse.

Nowhere do I claim that LB "heart" is a subject in this verse.

As for MTNH, that it is possible under Hebrew grammar to be a participle of
TNH as a word affecting the use of "heart", means that you cannot insist
that "gift" is the only way to understand the verse. Because of context, I
think that "gift" is the wrong understanding.

This is not an easy verse to understand. Yitzhak has opted for the option
that the verse has been corrupted, which is possible. But I see no evidence
that we have here a masculine verb with a feminine noun subject.

>
> In any case, Williams points out his work that it is not uncommon for a
> masculine verb to begin a clause and have a feminine noun as the subject.
>

I haven't been looking for such, but I can't recall seeing one. Can you give
an example?

>
> Ron Snider
>

 Karl W. Randolph.