Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jerry Shepherd <jshepherd53 AT gmail.com>]

 

 

Hi Kirk,

 

I appreciate your opinion on this, but I'm going to disagree (respectfully :) ). I don't think it's a dummy nominal, but really is serving as a relative pronoun.  As you note, it is not inflected for number, gender, or state, but neither is  אֲשֶׁר  . 

 

I've heard something like your position before, but I still think it works best, both for understanding the grammar and translating into English to regard it is an indeclinable relative pronoun.  So I am agreeing here with IBHS 19.4 and, as I read it, Jouon-Muraoka 145.  But perhaps you have some resources you could pass along to me on this topic as well.

 

Blessings,

 

Jerry Shepherd

Taylor Seminary

Edmonton, Alberta

jshepherd53 AT gmail.com

My opinion: a complete clause follows $E-; a relative always substitutes for a clause. In this case it functions as the object of the preposition K:-. That's its primary syntactic role. The clause doesn't need a subject, since the fem sg inflection tells us what is being referred to. The relative pronoun is really a misnomer: it's a "dummy nominal" that allows clauses to be placed where a noun or adjective must be. That it isn't a true pronoun is supported by the fact that the relative pronoun is not inflected for number, gender or state.

I don't object to the translation of "when". "So" would work as well IMO, but the semantics is due to the nature of the lemma K-, and not in combination with the relative pronoun. It has no semantic value in itself.

As for the subject of T.IP.OWL, it is feminine, and the closest possible antecedent that matches is `"T "time". "Evil time" coming suddenly upon men is a nice parallel to the "birds caught in a snare": it's completely unexpected and unplanned for.

   

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