Haggai 1:2

[Chris Watts]

Glenn and David I don't think that Ezekiel 23:43 is definitive proof. If you leave out the three places where a Lamed is prefixed to the word 'time' There is only one other place in all of scripture where we read an identical phrase where there is a seghol and a maquef connected to this word for 'time':
Leviticus 15:25: וְאִשָּׁ֡ה כִּֽי־יָזוּב֩ ז֨וֹב דָּמָ֜הּ יָמִ֣ים רַבִּ֗ים בְּלֹא֙ עֶת־נִדָּתָ֔הּ here is another construct.

Accepting the correction, ie, 'Now', does not really make any sense to me and certainly does not flow no matter how much I try to place it in the phrase. I think that there is always a reason for something and that there may be another message implied within the clause as well as the obvious translation on the surface of : The time has not yet arrived the time for building the Lord's house. In Haggai 2:14 it repeats this with an emphasis on : They came and they did the work.......

Is there no possibility that we have an implied meaning for later and a now meaning for the actual historical event? Otherwise there is absolutely no need to phrase something in such a convoluted manner unless the author is wishing to convey two messages within one literary rendering?

As for the masculinity of the verb "to arrive/come", writing this verb defectively is attested elsewhere EG in Exodus 2:18.

Glenn and David I appreciate your insights and suggestions, they are helpful and insightful. Thankyou.

Here is the page David:

IMG_Haggai.jpg

chris watts

[ducky]

Hi Chris,

I don't say that I accept that suggestion.
But you don't need to check for "proof" in the way you do.
Those who claim this suggestion just claim that this עת was indeed written that way (no vowel signs of course), and the vowel sign that was given to it by the Masoretic people is wrong. They suggest that this עת should be read as עתה just like in the cases of Ezekiel and Psalms.

*****
As for the page,
thanks for picturing that.
Notice that you wrote above ת"ם while the text is really ת"ע.
In this case, I can guess that it talks about the Septuagint, But please check in the initial letters section (there must be one) what ת"ע stands for.

If I'm right, then this note says that it should be read like that, and he adds that this is how it is written in Septuagint.

The English translation is:
The time is not come to build the house of the Lord.

Check if this fits that suggestion they made.

I can't really understand it, and maybe give me a little English lesson...
How this verse starts with "the time is not come..."
"Is not come"?

shouldn't it be "is not coming" or "does not come"?
What is this form of: "is not come"?

[ducky]

As for the masculinity of the verb "to arrive/come", writing this verb defectively is attested elsewhere EG in Exodus 2:18.

I don't understand you.
There is no defective spelling in Ex.
And also not in Haggai

The suggesters change it to באה as a correction - as the בא is a mistake and the real way is באה.
Or, another way is to keep the spelling as it is =בא= and treat the word עת in a masculine way.

[Glenn Dean]

The English translation is:
The time is not come to build the house of the Lord.

Check if this fits that suggestion they made.

I can't really understand it, and maybe give me a little English lesson...
How this verse starts with "the time is not come..."
"Is not come"?

shouldn't it be "is not coming" or "does not come"?
What is this form of: "is not come"?

I would translate it as "Now, the time has not come to build the house of the Lord"

Glenn

[Chris Watts]

Hallo David,

I am stretching at the absolute boundary with my knowledge at the moment and am teetering on the edge of a precipice, so I am aware I may be way off course here...having said that here goes....

Regarding the defective spelling as I have understood things grammatically......?
Haggai 1:2 is an infinitive and should therfore also have a Vav?
Leviticus 14:48 is an infinitive absolute so therefore should have a 'Vav'?
Exodus 2:18 is a 3rd fem plural in Qal imperfect, and should therefore have a Vav?

Now for an English lesson: "The time is not come"
This is actually used in modern English, for example we often would say" the time is not come yet to do this" when one would expect: The time has not yet come to do this".
As for the following:
1. The time is not coming...implies that it will never arrive, never happen; However
2. The time is not come...implies clearly that it will indeed arrive but it is not yet the time for it to happen
3. The time has not come...implies the same as 2 above. I believe that it is a matter of personal choice and conversational context as to whether someone uses number 2 or number 3 above. (may I ask what nationality you are please, just curious)?

Apologies about the Mem, I was really surprised that I made that mistake, really I do not know what happened. However I do not understand what you meant by: There must be Initial Letters Section somewhere? I have no idea what this is.

chris watts

[talmid56]

It may depend on your dialect (i.e., some variety of British English vs. American). I haven't heard this usage ("the time is not come yet") in conversation at all (I live in the U.S. and speak American English). To me that sounds literary, not at all modern or colloquial.

[ducky]

Hi,

Thanks for the explanation about the English sentence that was unclear to me.

**

About the defective spelling...
I think I understand what you mean (and I didn't understand it before).
You ask about the בא should be written as בוא

So in this case, there is no difference.
This word has many cases (of all forms) that once comes with a Vav and once Not
It doesn't change a thing.

As for תבאנה - in this case, it is like תקמנה תשבנה and so on, that also comes without Vav.
***

As for the section, I mean the abbreviation section.

I see the ת"ע - basically, the first thing that pops in my head is the Aqiles translation - but I don't know if it is even relevant here. And I don't know if the ת represent "translation" of that the ת"ע is something else.
Can you check it, please?
Maybe picture the page like before...

[Chris Watts]

I see the ת"ע - basically, the first thing that pops in my head is the Aqiles translation - but I don't know if it is even relevant here. And I don't know if the ת represent "translation" of that the ת"ע is something else.
Can you check it, please?
Maybe picture the page like before...

Sorry David, you have thrown me, I can not decipher what you are trying to say: Who or what is Aqiles? (The Spanish for our Trojan hero)? Kidding of course.

Check what? My eyes are sore with going over it.

Picture the page like before? What do you mean please?

What I find difficult to believe is that with all the myriad of Hebraic resources around in lexicons and references and dictionaries, I can not find a single book or reference that deals with these notes at the bottom of our Bibles, especially since they are taken from Masoretic notes writen hundreds of years ago. I have a BHS reference booklet that titles itself as a list of these abbreviations and a guide to BHS hebrew but this is stutgartensia and has nothing to do with the rabbinic bible of 1537 so to speak etc, so the booklet is useless because it does not deal with anything remotely recogniseable to what I see online or in my hebrew bibles.

Chris watts

[ducky]

Hi Chris,

Let's start from the beginning.
I know I am not clear enough.
So I'll try again.

You showed a page from a bible with a note and you called that note a Masoretic one.
But it is not a Masoretic note. It looks like a note that the editor of that book wrote (Academic note).
Masoretic notes don't come to "correct" the vowels.
It seems that the editor put that note, and he suggests that the words should be voweled differently, or to be spelled differently (by Ktiv & Kre).

He then adds the words כן ת"ע

The כן comes to say "so is".
As if he wants to support his suggestion on another source.
(for example "so is in the Septuagint/Syrian/Vulgate/and so on...)

And so, I was trying to figure out what is this ת"ע.
This is a form of initial letters (abbreviation).
Usually, there are commonly accepted (and expected) ones.
For example:
תה"ש/ת"ש would be Septuagint
ת"א would be Unklos
and so on...
I used two examples that both of them start with the first letter ת. And this ת stands for תרגום=translation.

And so, Also here, there is ת"ע which also starts with a ת - and so I assumed that this ת represent a specific translation.

I assumed before that it means the Septuagint
(since the letter ע=70, and the Sept. is called in Hebrew "The translation of the seventy").
Now I'm sure that it refers to that.

In my last post, I tried to explain the meaning of the ת"ע as initial letters and say that the only thing that can fit is תרגום עקילס - but it is not relevant.
תרגום עקילס = Aquila's translation (another Greek translation that most of it were lost).

So I was just wondering around. But now I understand this talk about the Sept. since in my "traveling" I saw another "page" that uses תה"ש=תה"ע (both Sept.)

and even though he writes תה"ע it is like ת"ע because the middle letter ה represents the definite article letter.

*************************
So what this *academic note* writes is this:
"It should be... and so it is also in the Sept.

Now go to the Sept. and see if the verse overthere fits to the way of the suggestion better than the MT way.

[Chris Watts]

Hallo David,

Thankyou for the explanation, that helps. Just two things; First I don't read hebrew so the septuagint is a no go, and secondly, a lot of the notes I come accross are also found in the great rabbinic bible and these are also notes that have been copied from previous texts now lost. So Going futher back I assume that notes have been transmitted faithfully down by each successive copier.
chris watts