Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

  Dear Rolph 

  Your question is a good one: " 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)? "

  A possible answer is: when the author wrote these
 verses the original meaning of deity's name YHWH was
 forgotten, and the standard verb for 'to be' was
 pronounced and written with a Yud. However, the
 ancient author  derived this divine name from HWH,
 because of the similarity. Most modern scholars are
 doing the exact same thing today. The ancient author
 then used the language of his time, including 
 verbs derived from the root HYH, to explain it.

  Nevertheless the author was not sure of the meaning of YHWH
 and thus wrote the enigmatic v. 14.

   I too am not sure that our understanding of the
 name  YHWH is better now, in the twenty first century,
 than it was in this pre-exilic text. But that of course
 is a different subject. 

  By the time this biblical passage was written , there
 was a clear split between Judean Hebrew and Aramaic.
 Cf. the language of Gezer and of the recently
 discovered Kh .Qeiyafa inscriptions - more than a
 century older that Tel Deir-'Ala. The great influence
 of Aramaic on biblical writing was to come later.  

  Best,

  Uri Hurwitz                                   Wilmington, . VT

  


,