Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

fred,

> in בראשית כא לא , the term means "well."
> in דברים א ה , the same three ordered letters, vocalized in essentially the
same manner, now means "explain."
> a. what is the tie that binds the two different meanings? "dig deep?" ... is
there a tie that binds?

probably none.  instead of "beer" let us take "pere$". PR$ would give
"explain"="excrement"="knight". the last two words have some connection, which
we city people are hardly aware of; but the first?

> b. and does "explain" imply a separate unadorned list of התורה elsewhere,
without commentary?

1) you are putting in one bag three meanings of "explain": 
"explain-A=give the moral justification and historical background for",  
"explain-B=interpret=find the exact meaning of a law",
"explain-C=add new rules or subrules". 
moses did A, the talmud did B+C. 

2) in addition, you are confusing LAW and RULING. what the judge in 
france or england (king solomon is no exception) explains or not, 
is the ruling; whereas what moses is said to "explain" is
the law. 

now, there is no problem adding an explan-A-ation  to a codex of law, 
making it more understood. especially if this is done by the original
legislator. even in france, i assume, the law is explained out in the
constitution (ironically, in israel .... not) and in numerous volumes of legal
text books. 

3) reading the torah, it makes sense to assume that moses found himself forced
to repeat the same rules to his not too obedient people. maybe he decided at
one point to include an "explan-A-ation", appealing to reason. 
if so, the torah includes both rule and explanation, and clearly, only once. i
dont see the necessity of conjecturing a second set of laws.

4) i suspect that a claim that the torah must be making a specific statement
on a future-time codex (if this is indeed your motivation) might be stretching
our limits. 

regards,

nir cohen