Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Pere:

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 9:49 PM, Pere Porta <pporta7 AT gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi, b-hebrew listers.
>
> Regarding this verse
>
> There was a small city with few men in it and a great king  came to it,
> surrounded  it, and constructed large siegeworks  against it.
>
> עיר קטנה ואנשים בה מעט ובא אליה מלך גדוך וסבב אתה ובנה עליה מצודים גדלים
> I'm wondering whether it is logical that one builds up large -LARGE-
> siegeworks agains a small -SMALL- city.
>
> Can this be a clear sign that the scene has been neither real nor
> historical but imagined by the author-writer to show, as a whole, that men
> very often are not grateful?
>
> Pere Porta
> (Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain)
>
>
>
About the first thing I noticed after recent discussions is that the weQatal
is used in what appears to be a similar situation as in 2 Kings 7:4, as an
indicator that this is a hypothetical situation, not an actual event that is
acted on.

Karl W. Randolph.

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