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  • From: K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
  • To: "Kevin W. Woodruff" <cierpke AT prodigy.net>
  • Cc: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Exodus 21:8
  • Date: Wed, 1 May 2013 20:12:13 -0700

Kevin:

On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 6:23 PM, Kevin W. Woodruff <cierpke AT prodigy.net> wrote:
Karl:
 
I got the definition from Brown Driver & Briggs and Koehler & Baumgartner's HALOT

I don’t have personal experience with HALOT, but I’ve worked with BDB enough that I don’t trust them. If HALOT is largely an update of BDB, as BDB was largely an update of Gesenius, then I think it’s over-rated.
 
assign or designate as concubine Ex 21:8, 21:9 (JE).
 
1. to allocate a woman (female slave) Exodus 21:8,9 (Hoftijzer VT 7:388ff);

This is one of the things I have against these dictionaries—languages don’t have unique meanings for lexemes for one time uses. Yet these dictionaries do, often making their meanings undefined.

If we want to communicate, we can’t be like Humpty Dumpty making up words willy nilly or giving known words unique meanings, and neither did Tanakh.

Now the LXX sometimes has a unique translation for each occurrence of rarely used terms, but that can be understood as evidences that the LXX translators were guessing as to the meanings of forgotten words.
 
When he bought the girl, he designated her for himself,

That’s the Qere reading, which gives other problems trying to fit other words into the text, problems that don’t show up with the Kethiv reading.
 
giving her and her family certain expectations.The deceit is in not making her his wife or concubine as the arrangement had stipulated. The hiphal

Is that a Hiphil? Or is that a Hophal (passive)? The consonantal text indicates the latter.
 
means "to allow to be ransomed" (the daughter of an Israelite from slavery through debt) Exodus 21:8.Cassuto also say that that the hiphal may be translated "she may redeem herself."
 
Make sense to me

The story may make sense, but how well does it fit the text?

Because Biblical Hebrew is not that well understood, expositors have taken liberties with the text to draw out stories that make sense, but I find myself sometimes scratching my head in puzzlement as I try to make a link from the stories to the text.
 
Kevin

Karl W. Randolph.



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