To: "Trevor & Julie Peterson" <06peterson AT cua.edu>, "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: Questions on Psalm 18:18
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 06:13:02 -0500
Thanks for the information, Trevor, and your patience. I am going to
process your comments in my slow pace, but on inital glance it looks like
you have explained my problems in terms of rules that were familiar.
I did indeed miss a syllable in my first question and that explains my
confusion. I guess it is sometimes a problem doing my study first thing
upon waking :-)
> Hope that's of some help. I'll let the verb gurus on the list address the
> use of the prefixal form at the beginning of the verse. It seems like we
> should expect a past-tense notion, so the rule of thumb that you translate
> prefixal verb forms as future or present and suffixals as past needs some
> sort of modification here. There are a number of theories to deal with
it,
> but maybe you don't want to get into all that just yet.
I am not familiar with the term "prefixal" but I would guess that is dealing
the use of WAW Consequtive forms. I had that on my list to ask about
regarding the passage. It seems that the tense modification rules I learned
cannot make sense-so I ignored them. I have gotten the sense that grammar
takes a second chair to rhythm in poetical Hebrew.
Thanks for the encouragement. I am not using my seminary training in a
professional capacity, though I wish I was. I really desire to understand
Hebrew better as a means of fuller understanding of the Hebrew Bible/Old
(&New) Testament. When I did serve as a pastor I did use Hebrew for sermon
preparation at least once a month, but I used my cheater tool of BibleWorks
to get through the grammar and then dug into the theology. (Don't tell my
Sem profs about this!)