Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Kevin Riley" <klriley AT alphalink.com.au>]

Karl,

Jim's examples come from a paper by Aloysius Fitzgerald, who does read
Hebrew.  As I said in my response, Fitzgerald acknowledges that there are
heavy-weight Hebrew scholars who disagree with him.  I am not sure you can
access the paper on the net without a subscription, but what Jim reports is
an accurate report of Fitzgerald's position.

Kevin Riley
 
-------Original Message------- 
 
From: K Randolph 
Date: 22/02/2009 11:31:54 AM 
 
Jim: 
 
On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 1:07 PM, <JimStinehart AT aol.com> wrote: 
 
> 
> 2. Within Biblical Hebrew 
> 
> A resh/R in the Bronze Age sometimes softened to a lamed/L by the Late 
> Bronze 
> Age or the Iron Age. Also, in the Bronze Age and Iron Age some dialects 
> may 
> have said resh/R while other dialects said lamed/L, and vice versa, even 
> though they were the same words. 
> 
 
The problem with cognate languages is that they are cognate languages. Just 
Because some languages had one and the others the other does not mean that 
The sounds were interchangeable. 
 
> 
> Even within the Bible itself, there is sometimes a de facto 
> interchangeability of resh/R and lamed/L, reflecting that phenomenon. 
> 
> (a) In connection with Isaiah 13: 22, Gesenius remarks: "the letter resh 
> [R] being softened into lamed [L] as is frequently the case." The most 
> famous 
> Biblical example of this phenomenon is Isaiah 13: 22, where the two 
> underlying 
> basic words, one spelled with a lamed/L and one spelled with a resh/R, are

> as 
> follows: aleph-lamed-mem-nun/aLman = forsaken; 
> aleph-resh-mem-vav-nun/aRman 
> = palace. At Isaiah 13: 22, we see a feminine plural form, spelled with a 
> lamed/L: aleph-lamed-mem-nun-vav-tav. But although the lamed/L would 
> normally 
> indicate "forsaken", here this word is often taken to mean "palaces", as
if 
> the second letter was resh/R. Or possibly there is a double meaning here, 
> so 
> that the word in context means "forsaken palaces". Gesenius further notes 
> in 
> this context: "I.q. Aleph-resh-mem-nun-tav (which is itself the reading of

> some copies)". 
> 
 
While it is a possibility that there is a typo (copyist error) in this 
Verse, it also reads correctly as written, I.e. Referring to widows. Look at

The conjugation of the verbs in the section, this is not a continuation of 
The previous verses, even though it appears to be so. Hence, Gesenius is 
Wrong (not surprising). 
 
> 
> (b) Four more examples like this, with lamed/L being interchangeable with 
> resh/R in Biblical Hebrew in certain contexts, are set forth by Aloysius 
> Fitzgerald in "The Interchange of L, N, and R in Biblical Hebrew", in 
> Journal of 
> Biblical Literature, Vol. 97, No. 4 (Dec, 1978), PP. 481-488. 
> 
> (I) At Job 6: 15-17, "understand… ayin-lm here as a dialectal form of 
> ayin-rm". At p. 483. Ayin-resh-mem means "heaped". Ayin-lamed-resh, by 
> contrast, "denotes 'hidden from the mind so that one is unaware of, 
> unconcerned about 
> an idea, activities, a situation or the like.' The verb is never used of a

> physical thing being hidden from the eyes of a beholder." 
 
 
Wrong again. Making unknown is used to indicate things, including physical 
Objects, out of sight. 
 
 
> At p. 483. Here, 
> the snow is "heaped up", 
 
 
This is poetic, and heaped up is not a necessary reading of the verse. 
 
 
> rather than the snow being "unaware" of some " 
> situation", or someone being "unaware" of the "situation" regarding the 
> snow. 
 
 
Snow is the subject of the verb, covering that which is underneath. You 
Misread the text (sorry, you don't read Hebrew). 
 
 
> (ii) "The second instance, confirmatory of the first, of this interchange 
> [of lamed/L with resh/R] in Job 6 is found in v 25: …Here nmrsw = nmlsw…."

> At 
> p. 485. 
> 
 
MRC is a correct reading of the word, no need to speculate about a typo 
Here. 
 
> 
> … 
> These examples show that even within the Bible itself, resh/R and lamed/L 
> are 
> sometimes interchangeable. 
> 
 
Not one of your examples stands up as a necessary reading of the verses, 
Hence this supposed interchange between lamedh and resh is highly 
speculative at best. 
 
> 
> 
> 
> Jim Stinehart 
> Evanston, Illinois 
> 
 
Karl W. Randolph. 
_______________________________________________ 
b-hebrew mailing list 
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org 
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew 
 
____________________________________________________________ 
 
No virus found in this incoming message. 
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com 
Version: 8.0.237 / Virus Database: 270.11.2/1965 - Release Date: 02/21/09
15:36:00