Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

By "text" I take it we are referring to the Masoretic text, which reads:

וְנִחַמְתִּי

The form can either be a piel or a niphal, not a qal or a noun.

Like I said before, I would rather the text dictate what it says than 
repointing it to what I think it should say.

Regards,
David Kummerow.


> David:
> Step one, before we go any further, what is the text?
>
> I accept only the consonantal text as authoritative. The Masoretic points
> are not authoritative. They represent an ancient tradition that is pretty
> good and concerning which I recommend changing only where there are
> questions, but not infallible. Therefore, I do not see repointing as
> emendation. But the consonantal text is sacrosanct, i.e. there had be very
> good evidence that it had been corrupted by copyist error, best where there
> are textual variants to back up the evidence. Even in most cases where 
> there
> are kethib/qere differences, I prefer the kethib.
>
> Because I don't have the points, I am very dependent on the context to
> indicate the best reading. Most of the time it's obvious. Occasionally 
> there
> are cases like this verse, where WNXMTY can be a qal, niphal, piel or from
> the noun NXMH without emending the text. My practice is then to look for 
> the
> meaning that best fits the context.
>
> So what is the text?
>
> It appears that at least one of your points depends on the answer to this
> question. We may need to agree to disagree.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.