B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

שְׂאֽוּ־יְדֵכֶ֥ם קֹ֑דֶשׁ

Does this mean:

a) lift up your hands in the sanctuary

b) .. towards the sanctuary

c) .. in holiness (B. Sota 39a, cited by Delitzsch)

? The older commentaries say this is an 'accusative of direction' and generally prefer b), and Richard McDonald, who uses a traditional grammatical framework, defends 'in the sanctuary' as an 'accusative of place' (https://yourhebrewtutor.com/2015/12/17/ ... ification/, comments). LXX has εἰς τὰ ἅγια, which could be either a) or b). My guess is that many here won't use these grammatical categories but, whether or not, I would be interested to find out what you think the text means.

The modern way of describing "c" would be calling קֹ֑דֶשׁ an adverb, lift up your hands in a holy manner. What argues most strongly against "c" is that it is in poetic parallel to ‎בְּבֵית־יְ֜הוָ֗ה in verse 1.

Hi,

As Kirk said. it is understood as carrying the hand toward the holy place.
And you can see in Psalms 28:2 the same principle.
Also in 1Kings 8:38, there are the hands toward the House, but in verse 22, the hands are toward the sky (like in other places in the bible when people prayed
with there hands to the sky.
In this case, it seems that it talks about the position of the Holy place in the temple and the request for the people to raise their hands toward it.

הִנֵּ֤ה׀ בָּרֲכ֣וּ אֶת־יְ֭הוָה כָּל־עַבְדֵ֣י יְהוָ֑ה הָעֹמְדִ֥ים בְּבֵית־יְ֝הוָ֗ה בַּלֵּילֹֽות׃
שְׂאֽוּ־יְדֵכֶ֥ם קֹ֑דֶשׁ וּ֝בָרֲכוּ אֶת־יְהוָֽה׃

Is this a matter of interpretation only? My tuppence ha'penny would have been that since he has already told us where they are standing, now he is moving on to tell us about the manner in which they are to bless the Lord. Then, if it were 'in holiness', it could perhaps be either in regard to the holiness of the priests and their hands, or in regard to the holiness of the place, or both. But would this be going beyond what the text allows?

Kirk, if you have time, would you mind expanding on your point about a poetic parallel? It's not obvious to me that the imperative of 2a is parallel to the descriptive participial clause at the end of verse 1.