Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Chris Watts <dekruidnootjes AT eircom.net>]

<<<<<  Hi Jerry, I will answer each question as you asked it below   
>>>>>>>

On 17 Jul 2013, at 18:04, Jerry Shepherd wrote:

Hi Chris,
Thanks for responding on this one.  Just a few thoughts in reply.

(1) You say you have no training, but you have apparently had at  
least some
Hebrew.  Could you tell us what you have had?

<<<<<<I have been reading for many many years and listening to music  
and anything that I could get my hands on; but only over the last  
couple of years have I actually been able to study in depth.  No  
college education, just self taught, while truck driving around  
Europe, but now I have much more time to study... a lot of my  
learning came from Rabbinical sources in the sense that I learned how  
they pull things apart so to speak, now I recognise that some of  
their methods are questionable and am always questioning and keeping  
control, but I found more common sense and depth from them, more than  
I have the christian books and essays and preaching to be honest.  
Besids, They know their own language better than anyone and I value  
their insight a lot.>>>>>>>

(2) You said, “The root means as you know, to be clear, in the  
forefront,
shine, to demonstrate . . .”; but actually, I don’t know that.  What
resource did you get this information from?  Is this perhaps from an  
older
lexicon?

<<<<I could not afford those expensive lexicons and was happy to find  
a Samuel Prideax tregelles Lexicon based on Gesenius from 1864 for a  
few old pennies,  I find it gives so much more information than the  
modern lexicons that I have seen on the web, even though they are  
undoubtedly up to date, I don't think up to date is always a good  
thing, nevertheless mine is also probably open to critical comments,  
besides I needed to purchase quite a lot of books some years ago and  
rummaged every antique bookshop I could find in Holland and England  
to get what I needed, it was more affordable, and I suppose a sense  
of nostalgia in thumbing through 150 year old pages wondering who was  
first reading them, it's funny seeing hand written notes from so long  
ago>>>>>>


(3) I appreciate the attempt, but you can’t really take a root word  
apart
and obtain meaning from just part of the root.  So, it really isn’t
legitimate to read כח into יכח.

<<<<<this once again is something that I have looked a lot into, I  
keep my reigns tight and will not go overboard, I rely firstly on  
even shoshan and translate the modern hebrew, I then look up in  
dictionaries and see where else this word is used to get a feel for  
its semantics.  But a valuable technique from the rabbinical method  
of analysis has in the past yielded incredible light on words and  
phrases that would not be so apparent merely by a sanitised  
grammatical perspective, (hastening to add that this does not replace  
anything, it is for me an added dimension that more often that not  
yields interesting depths) one has to be careful and I believe that I  
am, but I took hold of one particular technique where some verbs in  
hebrew have a consistent manner about them where you take the first  
two root letters and add a different third root letter and you often  
see a common denominator in its final application that would be  
linked back to the first two letters.  Now I do respect grammatical  
frameworks and have many grammar books to help me, and I am aware  
that many on this forum will hot out at this and pooh pooh theis  
approach (I apologise to them), but I see Hebrew as being capable of  
telling us more than what the grammatical structure reveals, I think  
hebrew is playful and often the poetic narratives are filled with  
double and even triple possibilities that often provide tension  
between two extremes, even force us to keep two diametrically opposed  
ideas possible because sometimes that is the whole purpose, not to  
straitjacket a meaning by endless discussions on grammar but  
sometimes the meaningt is not meant to be fixed into concrete .  And  
I saw in this verbal root strength, it stuck out a mile, and then  
applied this concept to someone who has a right mind based upon the  
actual root meaning which I got from Samuel Prideax tregelles Lexicon  
(1864) based on Gesenius. Now I realise that I took the last two root  
letters, it just stuck out too much to ignore.  Strength of mind was  
what I kept feeling - highly Un-Empirical I know but that was my  
feeling.  strength of mind, and the mind is the forefront and is the  
thing we use to demonstarte and should be lalight in the sunshine to  
make clear and right judgements and decisions, that is how I felt  
things when I read that verse.>>>>>>>

In any case, while I don’t think you get there by the right method,  
you are
nevertheless correct that the prophets were often thought to be not in
their right mind (see Jer 29:26; Hos 9:7).

<<<<<<I believe that the context fitted my translation, because God  
had said that he was to appear dumb (without speech) and that his  
manner was to appear of no worth in the face of the Israelites who  
knew him.  I am reminded of how God refutes the wicked with foolish  
things and makes something that is 'not' into something that is  
'something'.  the faxct that God would open his mouth in pure clarity  
would, I feel, be strong persuasive evidence to his kinsmen that God  
was with Ezekiel.>>>>>>>

Chris Watts
Ireland


On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 4:43 PM, Chris Watts  
<dekruidnootjes AT eircom.net>wrote:

> As you know I have no training.  So all I offer is an idea.  After  
> long
> thinking I came up with a translation that I think fits both  
> context and
> makes sense from the hebrew.  The root means as you know, to be  
> clear, in
> the forefront,  shine, to demonstrate, allthe way to judge correct  
> dispute
> in the hiphil; I then took hold of the two letters כח which mean  
> strength.
>  You need strength and clarity to perform all of the tasks that you
> mentioned in  your description.  So my translation would be:   
> "...you will
> be silent and you will appear as one who is not in his right  
> mind...." I
> think a colloquial expression would have fitted the meaning, and  
> looking at
> it from the peoples' point of view who would see and know ezekiel  
> this is
> how God wanted him to appear for a short while (poor guy).
>
> Chris Watts
> Ireland
_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew