B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

Chris,

Thank you for your diligent efforts in providing us with this valuable service!

Blessings,
Kirk

I generally agree with Karl. In the larger context, the two brothers (twins) are being contrasted: Esau was the outdoorsman, on the move, away from home. Jacob, in direct contrast, was a "homebody", staying at home. I don't think "innocence" in the moral sense is intended here. I...

Ryan, וִהְיִיתֶם֙ is from the verb הָיָה he was . The first yodh is a "root" vowel. The second yodh is part of the hireq-yodh combination of the long- i vowel, written plene . הָיָה is an irregular verb (middle-weak or middle-yodh class) and this is the normal form. But your main question ...

The pronominal suffix is 3rd masculine singular. Does the fact that it refers back to ‎ר֥וּחַ which is a feminine noun concern you? If so, remember that grammatical gender and "real" gender are not always the same. ‎ר֥וּחַ refers to God, which is usually understood to be masculine -- in th...

Well, a literal translation (from my perspective) would be: "Even the darkness is not dark for you; and night is as the day shines. As darkness, so light. [Darkness is the same as light (for you).]" In poetry sentences are often short and elliptical. And word order is changed to match para...

Well, it makes sense to me. There are no grammatical anomalies that I can see. I just note that the expression for take someone's name in vain is similar to the prohibitions in the Torah for taking God's name in vain.

So what were the commentaries upset about?

Ah. Then I agree with Joseph. The textual variant can be explained that the alef is silent and so dropped out of the text line due to pronunciation...

The Leningrad Codex has יאמרך and ‎נָשֻׂ֖א . Note the qibbuts under the shin . The other spelling uses shureq , so plene spelling or a difference of opinion on the length of the vowel. The first word's difference may be a different ms reading...or a simple publisher's typo...it also has shureq (a wa...

All right, gentlemen. This discussion has wandered from a discussion of the biblical hebrew language and texts. Let's leave it at this place.

Thanks.

I can answer about the WLC, having maintained that text for the past 20 years. ;-) Originally, WLC started with the BHS text. But in 1998 we began to conform the text to the Leningrad Codex, since we now had a photo facsimile of L. I've never done a comparison to the Bomberg text, but L is our manus...