Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Donald R. Vance, Ph.D." <donaldrvance AT mac.com>]

We are talking about the MT. If you want to make up your own vowels,  
go ahead, but don't claim to be talking about Hebrew. Personal names  
also don't get pronominal suffixes. PNs and common nouns are two  
different kettles of fish, hence the different terminology. As for  
your examples in Judges, every one is "Beth-Lehem, Judah" and yes,  
they are appositional phrases and every published grammar that I know  
of treats them that way. However, as it turns out, Beth-Lehem would  
look the same in the absolute and the constuct states, so there is no  
morphological guide here. We say Atlanta, Georgia without the genitive  
marker "of"; they are simply in apposition. Beth-Lehem, Judah would  
follow that pattern. I did a search in Accordance for PN <within one  
word of> PN and the only examples I could find (granted, just a quick  
scan of the results) of the construction we are talking about-- 
Geographic Name next to Geographic Name--involve Beth-lehem. It is  
interesting in Micah 5:1, we have the identical construction but using  
Ephratha instead of Judah and no one understands that as a construct.  
Ephratha is an appositional phrase further identifying Beth-lehem:  
"Bethlehem, Ephratha."

There is one construction, however, that might give credence to your  
idea: ûr kasdim. Ur certainly seems to be a PN and the phrase is  
usually understood as "Ur of the Chaldeans." Granted, Ur has an  
unchangeably long vowel, so its absolute and construct states are  
identical in form; morphology doesn't help here. I guess an  
appositional analysis of this phrase is possible ("Ur, Chaldeans"  
meaning the "Chaldean Ur"), but seeing Ur as being in the construct  
state seems more plausible, at least to me. Ironically, the LXX treats  
ûr here as "the region of" and not as a PN. Go figure.


Donald R. Vance, Ph.D.
Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature
Oral Roberts University
dvance AT oru.edu
donaldrvance AT mac.com


On May 5, 2010, at 12:04 PM, K Randolph wrote:

> Donald:
>
> On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 8:48 AM, Donald R. Vance, Ph.D. <donaldrvance AT mac.com
> > wrote:
>
> > Jim,
> > OK, let's try this again. It is impossible for bhrrm to be a  
> > construct.
> > Period.
>
>
> Not true. Possible if proper nouns (names).
>
>
> > Karl,
> > Proper Names do NOT occur in construct. Beth-Lehem Ephratha is NOT a
> > construct relation ship. It is an appositional phrase. How do I  
> > know this?
> > There is no reduction as occurs in nouns in the construct  
> > relationship.
> > Further, there are no examples of PNs in construct with the  
> > resulting vowel
> > reduction.
> >
> > And where is your evidence of vowel reduction, or lack thereof,  
> > when the
> vowels were not recorded at all?
>
> If you mean the vowels of the MT? Forget it. They are wrong often  
> enough
> that I found them untrustworthy. So untrustworthy that I no longer  
> use them,
> nor even have them on the page as I read the text.
>
> As for proper nouns, that is, names, not appearing in construct,  
> what do you
> make of Judges 17:7–8, 19:1–2, 18, and many more? Are these  
> oppositional
> phrases?
>
> By the way, I think the moderators would prefer it if you sign your  
> name.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
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