Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

George:

On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 12:22 AM, George Athas 
<George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>wrote:

> Karl,
>
> In your examples, the noun פנים in the expression על פני refers to the
> face of people. As such, it has a personal usage ('against' or 'opposite').
> This is certainly not the case in Gen 1.20, unless you want to propose the
> רקיע is a being, which I don't think you do. This is a common distinction:
> the 'face' of people and the 'surface' of things. Same word in Hebrew
> (פנים), but different connotations and different words in English.
>

I have already indicated verses where רקע refers to non-firm objects, such
as clouds of dust or mist. Therefore one cannot insist that רקיע refers to
a hard dome. That is medieval cosmology based on a faulty understanding of
רקע and its derivatives.

You didn’t look up the verses I mentioned concerning the phrase על פני
“upon the face” as some of them referred to countries and cities, not
necessarily people, referring to location. You need to look up words and
phrases as they are used in their contexts in Hebrew, and not to depend on
dictionary and cognate language use of the individual words.

Sometimes על פני refers to a physical face where one can take the
individual words, sometimes it is a phrase indicating time or spatial
position. Even with people, the phrase doesn’t refer to the physical face,
but “before”, “in the presence of” and similar meanings.

>
>
> GEORGE ATHAS
> Dean of Research,
> Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)
> Sydney, Australia
>
> Karl W. Randolph.