Thanks, Harold.
1 Kings 8:27 (KJB)
But will God indeed dwell on the earth?
behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee;
how much less this house that I have builded?
We have a double interrogative in the AV.
There is a parallel verse in 2 Chronicles where this is exclamatory in the AV.
2 Chronicles 6:18 (KJB)
But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth?
behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee;
how much less this house which I have built!
HH: There are no significant differences to alter the translation. The difference between AV Kings and Chronicles was probably a translator's choice, since there can be questions in Hebrew without a specific grammatical marker. There is the phrase "with men" in 2 Chronicles 6:18 that 1 Kings 8:27 does not have, but interestingly, the LXX of 1 KIngs 8:27 adds the phrase there. The Chronicles text is missing a definite article before the first "heavens," but the BHS editors think that it has simply dropped out of the text due to haplography, since the same letter "H" ends the previous word. That seems likely, since otherwise there is grammatical inconsistency.
HH: Some modern translations have a double interrogative in 1 Kings 8:27, suggesting, again, that it is merely a translator's choice:
... The issue seems more a question of what the tone might have been when Solomon gave the remark. A number of translations have a double interrogative at 2 Chronicles 6:18:...
Why look at translations?
1 Kings 8:27 (KJB)Karl,
But will God indeed dwell on the earth?
behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee;
how much less this house that I have builded?
We have a double interrogative in the AV.
I don't see the double interrogative in Hebrew. This is a phrase that has no exact equivalent in English, which the translators of the AV decided would make best sense if translated as an interrogative. As far as I can tell, it is not an interrogative in Hebrew.
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