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  • From: Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] The tower of Babel and the Hebrew "tenses"
  • Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:47:51 +0200

Please remember to sign your posts with your full name.

Thank you,

Yigal Levin
co-moderator


p.s. I'll let someone else actually answer the question.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Sesamo m." <sesamox AT hotmail.com>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 11:38 AM
Subject: [b-hebrew] The tower of Babel and the Hebrew "tenses"




"5And Jehovah cometh down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men have builded; 6and Jehovah saith, `Lo, the people [is] one, and one pronunciation [is] to them all, and this it hath dreamed of doing; and now, nothing is restrained from them of that which they have purposed to do. 7Give help, let us go down, and mingle there their pronunciation, so that a man doth not understand the pronunciation of his companion.'
8And Jehovah doth scatter them from thence over the face of all the earth, and they cease to build the city; (Gen 11:5-8, Young's Literal Translation).

Verse 5 seems to imply that the tower and the city had been already built. But verse 8 shows that at least the city wasn't completely built.
I'm not an expert in Hebrew, but I remember having read when I was a student that the perfect aspect of the Hebrew verbs might be used for something you haven't necessarily done, but that you are determined to do, something you consider done. My explanation is not very academic, but I hope you understand what I mean.
And my question is, could this text admit the possibility that the tower itself hadn't been built when Jehovah scattered the people?
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