Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Pere:

One of the difficulties of reading Biblical Hebrew is that the lack of
written vowels can lead to all sorts of different meanings, where the
context is needed to sort out which meaning is meant in each context.

For example, f-r could be far, fear, fir, for, four, fur in English, but
our use of vowels usually tells us which is correct. Similarly in the
absence of vowels in Biblical Hebrew, there are many words that are written
the same way, but most likely had very different pronunciations when spoken.

So in this case, רעה could come from רעע to be displeasing (does not mean
“bad” except as a derivative that bad things are usually displeasing.
Displeasure can even refer to things that we don’t like, but are good for
us.), רעה to feed or רןע to sound forth (with a trumpet). Context usually
clears up any questions. But when reading, we must remain conscious that
all these options are open when reading any text.

In this context I read it as referring to feeding.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Sun, Apr 1, 2012 at 7:40 PM, Pere Porta <pporta7 AT gmail.com> wrote:

> Karl,
>
> then....... 'ra'a'. רעה, does not mean "bad" here?
>
> (Of course, this 'bad' is meant for the caught fishes, not for
> the fisherman who threw the net into the water -sea or lake or river.....)
>
> Pere Porta
>