Hi Chavoux Luyt,
Thanks for your comments. It is true that some feminine nouns may take masculine ending, but it is still not possible in our case here since אִשָּׁה (Hos 1.2) is singular not plural. I mean if your argument is right, then אִשָּׁה must be in plural since in Hebrew both noun and its defining adjective accord in genre and number. The point is that זנונים does not play an adjective role here but may be a stand alone noun, as someone has argued earlier, but then how could we translate it?
Regards,
Olivier Randrianjaka
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2011 10:41:06 +0200
Subject: Re: how to translate Hosea 1:2 (Olivier Randrianjaka)
From: chavoux AT gmail.com
To: rev_oli AT hotmail.com
CC: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Hi Olivier
> My comments:
> The problem is that the translation "a prostitute woman or wife" is not > linguistically appropriate since the adjective following the
> feminine noun אִשָּׁה in construct state is actually in masculine > plural זנונים which makes the above translation impossible.
I am not too sure of this, because there are some feminine nouns
taking the "masculine" plural (e.g. Beitzah -> Beitzim) and the other
way round (Ab -> Abot). So it is at least _possible_ that zonah takes
the masculine plural in this case.
>I would prefer the translation "woman of prostitution" or "woman >practicing a sacred prostitution" than the common "prostitute
>woman" which is not fitting linguistically and theologically.
And I would agree with you here.
Regards
Chavoux Luyt
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