Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Phil Sumpter" <philsumpter AT hotmail.com>]

All translations of Ps 24:5 that I know of (including commentaries) treat v. 
5 as starting a new clause: "He will receive ... ." Andersen-Forbes, however, 
analyse this differently. They see vv. 4-5a as being one sentence, with v. 4 
being the subject of the verb yissa' in v.5. This would render the 
translation:  "One clean of hands ... who has not lifted ... will receive." 
Having said that, the answer is clarified once more in v. 6, so perhaps this 
is intentional ...

My question is what makes this a better reading then the typical one? Here 
are some pros and cons:

Cons:

- The question in v. 3 is indirectly answered.  Having said that, the answer 
is clarified once more in v. 6, so perhaps this is intentional ... This may 
be the result of the function of the section within the horizon of the whole.
- Though subject and verb are part of one sentence, poetically they are 
separated by a strophe, which is unusual (does this happen elsewhere)?

Pros:

These become particularly clear when we compare the Psalm to Psalm 15, its 
close relative:

- Ps 15 also has noun-phrases followed by qatal verbs. The difference is, the 
qatals in Ps 24 are preceded by 'asher, which A-F consider to be a 
"nominalizor." That means that the following two qatal clauses, in contrast 
to Ps 15, "function as a noun." (I have to say, however, that this is an odd 
concept for me ... I don't see, for example, how Deut 13.7 is "nominalized." 
Hay anyone heard of this concept?).

- Ps 15:5c, like Ps 24:5, is a promise of the benefits of the one who does 
what is described in the previous verse. The difference is that in Ps 15 an 
extra subject is added beforehand: 'oseh 'eleh. In Psalm 24, the subject is 
repeated afterwards in v. 6, preceded by the demonstrative "zeh." One could 
argue that this extra clarification is needed given the indirectness of the 
answer to the question in v. 3.

- V. 4 as subject is syntactically possible (noun-phrase+relative clause). It 
occurs 4 times in poetic books: Pss 24:4-5; 35:8; 41:10; 86:9 and 67 times in 
the rest of the Bible. A good example of a very similar construction with a 
very long subject is Deut 28:56. The first noun-phrase consists of two 
elements and the relative clause doesn't consist of two further subclauses 
(and this isn't even poetry, so there's no parallelism!). Cf. also Num 9:13;  
Josh 1:18; and Ezra 6:5 (in Aramaic), which have especially similar 
structures. 


Philip Sumpter

http://narrativeandontology.blogspot.com/
>From kwrandolph AT gmail.com  Thu Jun 25 14:22:07 2009
Return-Path: <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
X-Original-To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Delivered-To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Received: by lists.ibiblio.org (Postfix, from userid 3002)
        id 046B64C016; Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:22:06 -0400 (EDT)
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.3 (2007-08-08) on malecky
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=none autolearn=disabled
        version=3.2.3
Received: from mail-pz0-f185.google.com (mail-pz0-f185.google.com
        [209.85.222.185])
        by lists.ibiblio.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 510274C014
        for <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:22:06 -0400 
(EDT)
Received: by pzk15 with SMTP id 15so1265956pzk.4
        for <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:22:05 -0700 
(PDT)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: by 10.142.222.19 with SMTP id u19mr1033005wfg.87.1245954125429; Thu,
        25 Jun 2009 11:22:05 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <BLU0-SMTP68C53268667BFD1C4F6B43C1340 AT phx.gbl>
References: <4A434ADD.2070106 AT exemail.com.au>
        <BLU0-SMTP68C53268667BFD1C4F6B43C1340 AT phx.gbl>
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:22:05 -0700
Message-ID: <acd782170906251122i683e9543gb8ab3762142a5132 AT mail.gmail.com>
From: K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
To: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] b-hebrew Uncancellable meaning and Hebrew verbs
X-BeenThere: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9
Precedence: list
List-Id: Biblical Hebrew Forum <b-hebrew.lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>,
        <mailto:b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew>
List-Post: <mailto:b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Help: <mailto:sympa AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=HELP>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>,
        <mailto:b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:22:07 -0000

David:

We are not talking about your dialect, wherever it comes from, rather
we are talking about international standard English used for
international communications, which, incidentally, has the same
meaning as in the variety of English that I grew up with, namely upper
Midwest U.S. English.
And I backed up my claim with an international list of reference works.

(I asked my son, who grew up here on the left coast, if “plod quickly”
made sense: he laughed and said it is an oxymoron, as slowness is a
necessary part of “plod”. So apparently your use is dialectal,
non-standard and as of yet not a sign of changing use in standard
English.)

You misrepresent Rolf, me and others on this list when we use
“uncancellable meaning”, for none of us insists that an uncancellable
meaning must cross the boundary from a standard use of a language to a
dialectal, non-standard use. You are wrong to insist that it must in
order for the concept to be valid.

Now back to Biblical Hebrew: during the time it was written, from
about 1400–400 BC, it remained remarkably stable, with almost no
change in lexicography and grammar. There are changes in literary
style that are recognizable, but we don’t find lexicographic (words
that change meanings) nor grammar changes. So for the Hebrew used
within that period, it is possible that there were uncancellable
meanings that were valid neither for cognate languages such as
Aramaic, nor for Mishnaic and later Hebrews. The question is, did Rolf
correctly identify those uncancellable meanings?

Karl W. Randolph.

Ps: adding “slow” to “plod” is like a double negative in koiné Greek,
making something already slow even slower.

On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 3:11 AM, David Kummerow<farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com> 
wrote:
>
> Hi Karl,
>
> What I'm saying is that construing "plod" as a quick action is not a
> non-standard use for me, it is not poetic, or rhetorical, or anything.
> It is quite an acceptable use of the term. So all of these are fine for me:
>
> (1) I plodded quickly to the barn.
>
> (2) I plodded slowly to the barn.
>
> (3) I plodded slowly through my homework.
>
> But (4) is unacceptable:
>
> (4) *I plodded quickly through me homework.
>
> The question is: What is the uncancellable meaning of "plod" in such a
> dialect as mine, if semantics is supposed to be uncancellable meaning as
> claimed by Rolf? Personally, I'm happy to allow for cancellable
> semantics, but for those who take semantics to be uncancellable meaning,
> then what is the uncancellable semantics of "plod"?
>
> Regards,
> David Kummerow.
>
>