Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Stephen Shead <sshead.email AT gmail.com>]

Hi Phil,

I don't think you've interpreted Moberly correctly. It's true that he
connects 'echad with "Solomon my son", but not as apposition. He argues
that this is a verbless clause in which "Solomon my son" is the subject and
'echad is the predicate, i.e.: "Solomon my son is (but) one (man)". He
argues that the context supports this - the multitude David is addressing
contrasts with this one inexperienced youth who is supposed to lead them -
and appeals to Isa 51:2 and Ezek 33:24 for parallel constructions with
'echad as a predicate complement with a similar sense.

The second part of Moberly's argument is that the rest of the line is an
independent clause, not a relative clause - i.e. the lack of an 'asher is
not the typical omission of the chronicler, not a textual error, but rather
the fact that we have two parallel, independent clauses. Thus, the second
half becomes: "God has chosen him [as] a young and inexperienced man." If
this is correct, the last two words - N(R WRK - would be functioning as an
object complement (i.e. complementing BOW).

Interestingly, the Masoretic accents seem to support Moberly's argument, in
that they group echad with what precedes, rather than what follows.

Regards,
Stephen Shead
Centro de Estudios Pastorales
Santiago, Chile

---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Philip Sumpter <philsumpter AT hotmail.com>
> To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Cc:
> Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2012 17:04:24 +0100
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Anderson-Forbes analysis of 1 Chron 29:1
> Thank you all for your responses.
>
> Walter Moberly has his own interpretation, which can be read online here:
>
> http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QZs3AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA209&lpg=PA209&dq=moberl
>
> y+yahweh+is+one&source=bl&ots=6qXm0wfbMc&sig=lNtxNUaVEMTk_H_XnPII1v5EkUg&hl=
>
> en&sa=X&ei=jV5kT8fSDOT04QSK9umNCA&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=moberly%20yahw
> eh%20is%20one&f=false. He thinks that "'echad" is in apposition to "beni"
> and should be translated: "Solomon, my one son."
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Phil Sumpter.
>
>