Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

>On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 3:44 AM, Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com> 
>wrote:

>> [RB]
>> In Judges we can simply read as it is: "rad",
>> presumably from a root r.d.d. with a meaning similar to y.r.d.
>> So in Judges we have a rare dialectical word that isn't otherwise used.
>> But it is attested in the ktiv and MT.
>>
>[KarlR (spelling out your first name because of potential confusion
between your last and my first name if someone were thinking
'Randolf/Randall' back and forth)]
>I take this as an adjective, not a verb, where the dropping of the initial
>yod of the root is found in other words as well. There is no need to take it
>as either dialectal or to invent a new root as a homonym of RDD.

[RB]
a. Would you mind listing a few of these yod-less adjectives [or nouns]
for us to observe and compare what might be happening? Nothing
came to mind that would fit.  `edah and da`at have suffixes added.

b. I know of no other person who "reads Hebrew" with an adjective "rad".
How would you make a plural or feminine of this "word", and how does
it sound in your system?

c. In Hebrew participles are "adjectival"
and part of nominal morphology [-im, -ot], but function within the verb. To
say that 'rad' is an adjective would not necessarily be saying
anything different
than that it is a participle, which would fit Judges 19 and r.d.d. nicely. The
participle/adjective 'rad' and suffix tense 'rad' both fit and both
give almost the
same 'meaning' here because of the word order. (cf. dal, daq)



>> [RB]
>> [PS: out of curiousity I checked Qaddari, Milon to see if he might have
>> a note. He pointed out that in Jer 42.10 we have an infinitive "shov".
>> In that verse we have the complement shov teshvu instead of
>> yashov teshvu. So "hey!", we have two witnesses for a dialectical
>> shav yashuv with the meaning 'reside/live'. I will now go with the
>> homonym understanding, though I'm leaving the rest of this note
>> for completion.]
>>
> [KarlR]
>This is from the verb “to return”. The people had left their farms and towns
>and were ready to flee to Egypt. Jeremiah urged the people to return in the
>land to where they came from.

[RB]
but this has the wrong preposition for your reading.
If they had left their farms, one would expect 'return to your [farms]'
I think we'll stick with the MT here and read 'teshvu' 'you will reside'.
The OldGreek (=49:10) agrees, Aram targum and Syriac, too, FWIW.

shuv with b- would designate 'how' or a metaphorical 'against/negative/on'.
Here the natural reading is 'stay in the Land' with a normal use of la-shevet
with be-

In any case, your explanation doesn't explain the MT choice.


>> [RB]
>> The MT exists, and as this example shows, they preserve things
>> that they themselves couldn't explain. It would have been easy,
>> both linguistically and theologically to simply vocalize like Ps 27.
>> 4 "shivti bevet ha-shem". But they didn't take the easy road,
>> fortunately for us.
>>

...

>[KarlR]
>Before I stopped reading a pointed text, I noticed several examples where
>the Masoretes pointed incorrectly as far as meaning is concerned. But
>because I was just into reading and not into analysis, I didn’t record those
>examples.
>
> I take this as one example of where it is incorrectly pointed as far as
>meaning is concerned. This is a noun with an implied “to be”, making the
>Psalm open and close with with implied “to be”.

[RB]
you not made sense here. what noun?
an infinitive [which is a verbal noun], shabbat, or what?
please give a little phonetic information, too, so that we can better
evaluate what you are saying/claiming. (If you're not following the MT,
then we can't know what words or sounds you are thinking with unless
you spell it out [approximately, of course].)

blessings

Randall Buth



-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth AT gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life