Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Jim:

On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 8:24 AM, <JimStinehart AT aol.com> wrote:

>  Karl:
>
>
>
>  Can you set forth another passage in the Bible that has a similar 
> construction, yet the messengers are being sent 50-100 miles out of the 
> way?  Is that possible in Biblical Hebrew?
>
>
Yes. Another example is Numbers 21:14 where the people never followed the
messengers.

>
>
> 2.  We should also consider travel times.
>
>
Also encampment times. How far ahead of time did Jacob send his messengers?
How long was he encamped next to the Jordan before crossing over it? The
text doesn’t say. That lack of detail is enough to drive a Mack truck
through.


> Genesis 32: 7, 23, 32 and Genesis 33: 1 tell us that Jacob’s messengers 
> breathlessly
>
>
Don’t add to the text, that makes you look amateurish and foolish, and makes
you look lightweight in our eyes (to use a Hebrew idiom).


>  tell Jacob that Esau is coming with 400 men, and then Esau and his men 
> appear at dawn the next morning.
>
>
Again you add to the text, because the messengers could have returned a days
before, and Jacob timed his crossing to be the day that his brother arrived.
Further it does not say that Esau and his men appeared at dawn, rather that
the sun was already up. Read the text and don’t change it.


> …
>
> Jim Stinehart
>
> Evanston, Illinois
>
>
 People are telling me “not to feed the troll” because you keep adding so
much fluff (off topic verbiage) to your messages. If you were to edit that
fluff before posting, I think others on the list would tolerate you far more
if you limited yourself to linguistic questions. Linguistic questions don’t
need a whole essay to post, one or two paragraphs, if even that much,
usually suffices. If you keep up the fluff, you will give me no choice
except to tell gmail that your messages are spam, at which point gmail will
flush out your messages unseen by me and I will not be able to answer you.

Karl W. Randolph.