B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

Glenn Dean wrote: ↑Tue Oct 26, 2021 10:33 am 4th sentence: And the man took the book and he gave (it) to the judge.

Hidden Hebrew Text

ויקח האיש את־הספר ויתן אתו אל־השפט

Yep. Notice the inclusion of the parentheses around "(it)." The indication there is that you don't need to include it in Hebrew. You can just וַיִּתֵּן אֶל־הַשֹּׁפֵט or וַיִּתֵּן לַשֹּׁפֵט.

Glenn Dean wrote: ↑Tue Oct 26, 2021 10:51 am 5th sentence:And the judge read the command of the king which (was) written in the book, saying, ‘Send this man away to the wilderness and he shall die there’.

Hidden Hebrew Text

ויקר השפט את־מצות המלך אשר כתבה בספר לאמר שלח האיש הזה למדבר וימות שם

Notice that ויקר is the vav-consecutive of קרה. The א of קרא doesn't drop off. It's ויקרא.

Yes, כתבה is a possible form, given that the u vowel could be written defectively (כְּתֻבָה), but it's better to include the long vowel (כְּתוּבָה).

As far as the vocalization of the last two verbs, the first should be שַּלַּח (šallaḥ; piel) rather than שְׁלַח (šəlaḥ; qal), and the second should be clearly marked as וְיָמוּת (wəyāmûṯ; jussive) so that it won't be mistaken as a possible וַיָּ֫מוֹת wayyā́môṯ (as if a long spelling of וַיָּ֫מָת wayyā́moṯ). It should clearly be a jussive, but it should be marked with sheva to be clear (וְימות), since the vav-consecutive could not be marked with sheva.

Jason Hare wrote: ↑Tue Oct 26, 2021 1:51 pm Yes, כתבה is a possible form, given that the u vowel could be written defectively (כְּתֻבָה), but it's better to include the long vowel (כְּתוּבָה).

I was using the fs active participle (it's antecedant being "commandment") - I didn't even think about the passive participle (with the shureq). Thanxs for pointing this out. I still have a ton of problems with the participle, but I think I needed to ask the question: "Who wrote the commandment into the book" (clearly the king). So the commandment didn't write itself into the book, the commandment was written into the book by someone else, so that's why it is in the passive participle - is that sort of the logic you use??

But a commandment cannot write. It can only be written, so it must be passive. The normal feminine active is normally כֹּתֶ֫בֶת, but the alternative form is כֹּתְבָה. The latter is far less common.

So the commandment didn't write itself into the book, the commandment was written into the book by someone else, so that's why it is in the passive participle - is that sort of the logic you use??

Precisely.

Sentence 6: And the judge hearkened to the voice of the king—according to (‘as’) all that he commanded him, so he did.

Hidden Hebrew Text

וישמע השפט לקול המלך כְכֹל אשר צִוּהו כן עשה

Glenn Dean wrote: ↑Thu Oct 28, 2021 3:31 pm Sentence 6: And the judge hearkened to the voice of the king—according to (‘as’) all that he commanded him, so he did.

Hidden Hebrew Text

וישמע השפט לקול המלך כְכֹל אשר צִוּהו כן עשה

טוֹב מְאוֹד — הִפְלֵ֫אתָ לַעֲשׂוֹת

You’ve really cut through these sentences, Glenn!

If you know of Weingreen’s composition textbook (Classical Hebrew Composition), you’ll know that his translation exercises there are even longer than this one! Do you plan to get through the rest of this one?

I think I'm gonna faint - there are exercises longer than this one?!?!?

I definitely want to finish this exercise 32.4! LOL - I think I only got 4 more sentences to go ha-ha,

Glenn

I divide the exercises, which are one long text, into individual sentences for our students. Then I number the sentences and put them into a table for translation. You can see an example here, where I go through one complete exercise from Weingreen’s book:

Thanxs for that link! It says "Text III" - we're on "Text 32" in that book? Text III looks just as hard as Text 32