Biblical Hebrew Forum

[dana densmore <danadensmore AT hotmail.com>]

Dear Guy,You wrote:> I recall a popular interpretative explanation given to 
me in early school years whereby it did stand for "was, is, will be" (Haya, 
Hoveh, Yihyeh), but it has always sounded to me as a much later, if not even 
recent attempts at endowing what might have been a mere name of location and 
its associated deity  a rather philosophical or theological "actual 
meaning".>Indeed, it does seem from the fact that the explanation presents 
itself in the grammatical structure of "past", "present", and "future" that 
it is modern---European or modern Israeli---rather than Biblical.  And it 
seems to convey either ignorance of Biblical Hebrew or disregard of the 
likelihoods of its linguistic patterns.  Or perhaps we should just call it 
midrashic imagination indulging in eisegesis.By the way, I gather that BDB 
believes that the masculine singular participle "hoveh" does not occur in the 
Hebrew Bible (they do show a feminine singular participle). If this is true 
(and perhaps those of you on this list who know the Hebrew text well can 
confirm or refute) it suggests that the "popular interpretive explanation" is 
even less likely.Dana DensmoreUniversity of Wales Lampeter