Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

Niccacci is right on this (thanks James!). The pronoun הוא is acting as predicate of the pronoun אתה: "you are he/it". The noun האלהים is then functioning appositionally: "you are he, the God". This sounds very clunky in English, but the sense can be conveyed with something like "You are it, O God!" or "You are it: you are God!" or "YOU are God!" or even "God, you're the one!"

GEORGE ATHAS

Dean of Research,

Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)

Sydney, Australia

From: James Spinti <jspinti AT eisenbrauns.com>
Date: Friday, 16 November 2012 1:00 AM
To: Michael Abernathy <mabernathy AT conwaycorp.net>
Cc: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] הוּא after pronouns

Mike,

This is discussed in "The Verbless Clause in Biblical Hebrew," pages 227-230, in the article by Alviero Niccacci, Types and Functions of the Nominal Sentence. He specifically mentions and translates 2 Sam 7:28 in footnote 50:

50. Literally, ‘It is you that are he, namely the (only) God’.

HTH,

James

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