Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rolf" <rolf.furuli AT sf-nett.no>]

Dear Uri,

It is fine that you bring up a point where I have not expressed myself in a 
clear way. In the thread I have pointed out that WAW and YOD could be used in 
an alternate way. The Balaam inscription from Deir Alla, from the eight or 
ninth century BCE, has some words that resembles Aramaic and others that 
resembles Hebrew. So, we should not insist on a strict distinction between 
the languages at the beginning of the first millennium BCE.

My words in the paragraph you quote, was solely directed at Exodus 3:14, 15. 
It has often been claimed that the words of v. 14 is an explanation of the 
name of God in v. 15. One problem for such a claim is that the verb in v. 14 
is HYH, and if YHWH is a verb form, the root is HWH.  If the writer wanted to 
explain YHWH, would he not have used the same root in his explanation ( in v. 
14) as in the name (v. 15)? What I tried to convey, was that we have have no 
clues that there is a connection between HYH in v. 14 and a supposed verb HWH 
in v. 15. Thus, the verbs in 1st person singular in v. 14 need not be 
anything more than an explanation of the personality or purpose of YHWH; they 
need not be an explanation of the meaning of his name.


Best regards,



Rolf Furuli
Stavern
Norway



Lørdag 8. Juni 2013 00:43 CEST skrev Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>:

> Dear Rolf,
>
>    The root HWH is attested in Aramaic at least since
>  the eighth century (KAI) with the same meaning as the
>  biblical HYH. In fact a few cases of the Aramaic form
>  are preserved in the HB, compared with thousands of
>  cases of the standard HYH. With the exception of the
>  medial consonant, they are quite similar.
>
>    Therefore I am at a complete loss to understand 
>  when you state:
>
> "..... And continuing the line of uncertainty, we do
>  not know whether there is a wordplay (similarity of sounds)
>   between the use of HYH in Exodus 3:14 and the name
>  YHWH in 3:15. We do not even have any clues that could
>  suggest that there was a connection between the verb HYH and YHWH."
>
>    Best,
>
>   Uri Hurwitz                    Wilmington, VT
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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