Isaiah 56:10 construct question

Classical Hebrew morphology and syntax, aspect, linguistics, discourse analysis, and related topics
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talmid56
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Re: Isaiah 56:10 construct question

Post by talmid56 »

I understand that Waltke and O'Connor is considered intermediate-level. I have it but have not looked at it yet. So I may be wrong. What do you think, Jason? As for Gesenius, he is definitely advanced-level.
Dewayne Dulaney
דואיין דוליני

Blog: https://letancientvoicesspeak.wordpress.com/

כִּ֤י שֶׁ֨מֶשׁ׀ וּמָגֵן֮ יְהוָ֪ה אֱלֹ֫הִ֥ים חֵ֣ן וְ֭כָבוֹד יִתֵּ֣ן יְהוָ֑ה לֹ֥א יִמְנַע־ט֝֗וֹב לַֽהֹלְכִ֥ים בְּתָמִֽים׃
--(E 84:11) 84:12 תהלים
talmid56
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Re: Isaiah 56:10 construct question

Post by talmid56 »

Kenneth, I don't recall if you mentioned how you started your Hebrew studies. Most beginner courses in BH have some grammar instruction (possibly too much). If you weren't exposed to that then, reviewing your English grammar would help some. While obviously there are many differences between English and Hebrew, some categories are universal, though functions differ somewhat. For example, both have nouns and verbs, both have adverbs, adjectives, and conjunctions. Both have phrases and clauses, and so forth. If English grammar review would help, I suggest something like the Cliff notes materials for English grammar and Barron's Essentials of English. I used these for some review when preparing for teacher certification tests some years ago.

I had a fair amount of grammar instruction in English classes in high school. I was exposed to Greek grammar when I took a night course in NT Greek in high school. While I enjoyed it, I had trouble understanding and memorizing the case system for nouns, articles, adjectives, and pronouns. When I went to college and took my German classes, the case system concept finally clicked for me. This helped when I took Greek again a few years later. Meanwhile, I had also started teaching myself some Latin, which also helped. I went through these three language courses of study before starting Hebrew, so learning its grammar was somewhat easier for me.

Besides the basics of Hebrew grammar I learned in my introductory course, we did some looking at grammar in the three reading courses which followed. For the intro course I used Menachem Mansoor's primer. Later I bought and started using Gesenius' grammar. I also borrowed Jouon's grammar from my teacher to look up a few things. I also have read a few articles and papers, including a dissertation or two. There are lots of such papers on Academia.edu you can freely download after registration. Cook and Holmstedt's Ancient Hebrew Grammar blog also has a lot of helpful articles. I've used them extensively to learn from. Finally, I would also encourage you to take advantage of the Hebrew4Christians grammar lessons (free, online) and the new UnfoldingWord Hebrew grammar pages online. The latter interacts with modern linguistics, as do Cook and Holmstedt, which is a good thing.

I suppose, for the sake of completeness, I should mention that I also learned a lot from the Greek grammars. They were Machen's primer, Dana and Mantey's intermediate grammar, and two advanced grammars. These two were A.T. Robertson's big grammar for Koine and Smyth's grammar for Attic (Classical) Greek.

Don't think that this reading was all done in one fell swoop. It was done at various times over the years, in small chunks, just as I needed or wanted to understand some point better or how certain forms worked, etc. It's still how I do it now. You will find also that learning how the grammar functions in the contexts you're reading helps it stay with you better--helps you understand and master it--more than just reading and memorizing the grammar discussions.
Dewayne Dulaney
דואיין דוליני

Blog: https://letancientvoicesspeak.wordpress.com/

כִּ֤י שֶׁ֨מֶשׁ׀ וּמָגֵן֮ יְהוָ֪ה אֱלֹ֫הִ֥ים חֵ֣ן וְ֭כָבוֹד יִתֵּ֣ן יְהוָ֑ה לֹ֥א יִמְנַע־ט֝֗וֹב לַֽהֹלְכִ֥ים בְּתָמִֽים׃
--(E 84:11) 84:12 תהלים
Chris Watts
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Re: Isaiah 56:10 construct question

Post by Chris Watts »

Been following this post and did not think I had anything worthwhile to contribute. So now I thought I would throw in a chin-wag. No problems with grammar myself, but I did find after a few years that I needed Context and Readability. I have four books that I wold like to recommend.

1. Graded Reader of Biblical Hebrew by Van Pelt and Practico
2. Readings in Biblical Hebrew by Ben Zvi, Hancock and Beinert
These two books are excellent for cementing grammar within context, plus lots of notes to go with them.

The next two are books with loads of grammar but are not grammar books specifically, although for me they are better than the grammar books since you are exposed to grammar within context, these are different from other grammars which you use as a references. Instead you can literally read them in the car, on the train, bedtime reading, they are extremely helpful even for casual reading.
1. Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax by Arnold and Choi
2. From Exegesis to Exposition by Robert Chisholm

To cut a long story short, I found after many years that learning grammar beyond the basics was pointless, I forgot it too quickly and too much information overload. But when I invested in the above books, grammar became a joy to understand because the focus was on stripping the grammar from the text rather than getting bogged down in rules and how stuff is pointed.

I also have reached a place where I used to get so headached over whether something had a Qames or a patach, or whether something had a patach or a hataf patch. They certainly have a purpose and a place, but for much of the time make no difference when one reads aloud, and I even find that it is rather over-complicating grammar to be so finnigelty about them. One wonders whether my English ROUTE should be pronounced with a sureq or with the American "I can't stand sound" of a sort of a holem vav or just a holem. Once I started lowering the priority of these vowel pointing differences in my learning I found reading Hebrew much more enjoyable and less stressful. Please be assured that I am in no way saying that I do not need the voewls, I could not do without them and they are important, but that I no longer prioritise their subtle differences sometimes and get hung up on each variation or shortening or lengthening rules like I once used to.

chris watts
talmid56
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Re: Isaiah 56:10 construct question

Post by talmid56 »

While I haven't used the books Chris mentions, I certainly agree with the points he makes here--both about the value of learning grammar in context and of not over-stressing about vowel points. Which is why I like adding interactive Hebrew bits to my study, and recommend that way of learning BH in a class if you can. (Memorizing Bible verses or chapters in Hebrew counts as interactive, too. I am trying to get back to spending time on that. Some time ago I did Psalm 1, and enjoyed it.)
Dewayne Dulaney
דואיין דוליני

Blog: https://letancientvoicesspeak.wordpress.com/

כִּ֤י שֶׁ֨מֶשׁ׀ וּמָגֵן֮ יְהוָ֪ה אֱלֹ֫הִ֥ים חֵ֣ן וְ֭כָבוֹד יִתֵּ֣ן יְהוָ֑ה לֹ֥א יִמְנַע־ט֝֗וֹב לַֽהֹלְכִ֥ים בְּתָמִֽים׃
--(E 84:11) 84:12 תהלים
Kenneth Greifer
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Re: Isaiah 56:10 construct question

Post by Kenneth Greifer »

I was just looking on Googlebooks at the Waltke book and I realize it teaches grammar in extreme detail from the beginning of the book. It doesnt' just expect you to know it. What I want is a book that is thorough like Gesenius' grammar book, but gives you lots of examples in Hebrew that you don't have to go look up and that explains the grammar somewhat. I like the way this book explains things from the very lowest level. Before when I looked at it, I didn't look at the beginning as much. See, my original question was about the construct form of words being used before different prepositions like "in" or "from", and this book has examples of that. It seems to have a lot of information like Gesenius' book but easier to use. So far, if I get a book on this subject, this book looks pretty good and thorough. My only question is does it have very small print? I would rather get a normal size print.
Kenneth Greifer
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Jason Hare
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Re: Isaiah 56:10 construct question

Post by Jason Hare »

Kenneth Greifer wrote: Fri Aug 20, 2021 1:35 pm I didn't know there is a difference really. In the future I would like to, but what is the book by Waltke and O'Connor that is called something like the syntax of Biblical Hebrew? Which one is that? You can read it on Googlebooks for free practically.
That should be used as a reference only after you have already gotten through a teaching grammar. Things that are appropriate for learning the grammar are:

Basics of Biblical Hebrew (text and workbook) by Pratico and Van Pelt
Learning Biblical Hebrew (text and workbook) by Kutz and Josberger
Beginning Biblical Hebrew (one text) by Cook and Holmsted

There are many others, but these are very useful.

If you're looking for one that is able to be found online, you can look into Weingreen's Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew, though it is dated at this point. I'm creating a key for that book at this time.
Jason Hare
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Kenneth Greifer
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Re: Isaiah 56:10 construct question

Post by Kenneth Greifer »

Jason,
I have read a few different introductory Biblical Hebrew books over the years. The ones I used did not discuss higher level things that I want to see like my original posting in this topic.
When I was little, I went to a school that was semi-religious and they taught Hebrew. They also read from the Hebrew Bible. I started there later than other kids, and I was always in the remedial program, so I had first, second, and third grade Hebrew for four years, so I don't count that as learning Hebrew. I did not learn any Hebrew. When I was older, I read introductory books like "First Hebrew Primer" and some others. I got the gist of it, but I didn't try to memorize lists and rules, etc. I can't.
Now, I want a higher level book, and not another introductory one so much.
You said you are creating a key for Weingreen's book. What does that mean? Also, I actually studied from that book many years ago.
Kenneth Greifer
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Jason Hare
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Re: Isaiah 56:10 construct question

Post by Jason Hare »

I don't understand what you want. Did you not just say that you have trouble reading grammar books because of the grammatical terminology? Where will you learn that if not in a book that teaches the grammar? You cannot skip into Gesenius et alii, who assume that you have already covered the grammar, without first working through translation exercises and struggling with the concepts. In Hebrew, we say pará pará (פרה פרה). If you want to get the work done, you cannot milk all of the cows at the same time. You have to go from one to the next. When you finish with one cow, go to the next one. Each one in its turn.

You're trying to get all the milking done at once. You want to skip the introductory grammars but then you say that the grammar is over your head. You can't have it both ways. If an introductory grammar is easy for you, suck it up. Sit down and work through it REALLY QUICKLY, but cover it completely - and be sure of the material and the terminology. From there, jump into something more specialized and challenging. Finish with one cow before going on to the next one.

A key is a set of answers to the exercises. Weingreen has a lot of translation exercises from Hebrew to English and also from English to Hebrew. I'm creating a set of answers to all of his exercises. I'm in Exercise 24 right now, working up a couple of Exercises per week (some days more, some days less). If you want to use his grammar, there will be a set of answers that you can use for comparison.
Jason Hare
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Kenneth Greifer
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Re: Isaiah 56:10 construct question

Post by Kenneth Greifer »

Jason,
There is grammar and then there is hard grammar involving a lot of technical details and hard words. The introductory books like "The First Hebrew Primer for Adults" do not use the kinds of words that you find in some of these books. It is hard to explain what I mean because a lot of people here are highly educated and don't notice these words.
Here is an example from page 116 of the Waltke book:

"With temporal words a distributive repetition singles out the members diachronically."
Also, "A singular noun may be repeated syndetically to form a phrase indicating diversity."

You don't find sentences like these in every book, but this is what I am talking about when I say "hard grammar."
Kenneth Greifer
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Jason Hare
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Re: Isaiah 56:10 construct question

Post by Jason Hare »

The First Hebrew Primer for Adults is not a grammar learning book. You're looking at extreme simplification versus advanced material. Why don't you consider the learning grammars, which explain their terminology and are in between these extremes?
Jason Hare
Tel Aviv, Israel
The Hebrew Café
יוֹדֵ֣עַ צַ֭דִּיק נֶ֣פֶשׁ בְּהֶמְתּ֑וֹ וְֽרַחֲמֵ֥י רְ֝שָׁעִ֗ים אַכְזָרִֽי׃
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