Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 8:45 AM, Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com> wrote:

> >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)]
>

Ah, but my name was Anglicized at Ellis Island to Randolph, which should be
visually different enough as to hinder confusion with Randall.


> >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.
>

Why those suffixes? That was a question I asked years ago concerning why
some words have a suffixed heh or tau, and why some from the same roots
don’t? These suffixes you mention here could be examples of such, and not
because of dropping an initial yod.

>
> 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?
>

One of the first things I learned when I started reading Tanakh is that
spellings and words often don’t fit in those nice, little boxes that I was
taught in class. There are exceptions and irregular uses. There seem to be
more of them when one follows the Masoretic points. Now I go more by feel
than by 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)
>
> I just looked up in a concordance, and there RD is listed as a qal under
YRD.

RDD is listed as a verb, with the idea of spreading out, such as gold leaf
upon carvings, 1 Kings 6:32. Or a shawl upon a woman.

>
>
> >> [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]'
>

But Jeremiah used the word “land” and the people had not yet left the land.
They were still in Judea, preparing to leave, and in that preparation they
had left their farms and villages. So this is a return within the land, not
unto a land which they had left.


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

LOL.

>
>
> >> [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?
>

This is an example where the Masoretes got it wrong as far as meaning is
concerned. I read this as a shegolate noun. Context and syntax lead me to
that conclusion.


> 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].)
>

In reading the text, when we come across $BT שבת, are we dealing with a
derivative of Y$B, the verb or noun $BT, or a derivative from $WB? Context.
Examples from Y$B include Jeremiah 9:5, Amos 6:3, and the concordance lists
a few more, but I find some of them questionable.

As for pronunciation, my guess is that it may have been SeBeTe (the written
consonants in capitals, the proposed vowels in minuscule). Or with the
suffix as in this verse as SeBeTiYa. In both cases, the final syllable
unstressed, almost to the point of not being there.

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