B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

The Hebrew expression עֶרֶב בֹּקֶר אַלְפַּיִם וּשְׁלֹשׁ מֵאוֹת in Daniel 8:14 is literally "evening morning two thousand three hundred" and rendered as "two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings" in, e.g., NRSV. Am I correct in saying that the justification for this translation is that (a) in Hebrew a noun modified by a number may be in the singular even where the noun would be Englished in the plural; and (b) the two nouns "evening" and "morning" are joined together by a conjunction in 8:26 (הָעֶרֶב וְהַבֹּקֶר, literally, "the evening and the morning")?

Leonard Jayawardena

I'm not sure but I don't think you can find a plural for morning or evening in Biblical Hebrew. It could just be that the same form was used for either singular or plural.
Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy

Michael Abernathy wrote:I'm not sure but I don't think you can find a plural for morning or evening in Biblical Hebrew. It could just be that the same form was used for either singular or plural.
Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy

The word for "evening" is used in the plural in Ex. 12:6; 16:12; 29:39; 29:41; 30:8; Lev. 23:5; Num. 9:3; 9:5; 9:11; 28:4, 8. The Hebrew expression in all these passages is בֵּין הָעַרְבָּיִם , literally, "between the evenings." The word for "morning" is not used elsewhere in the plural, but that is because there was no need for the plural in the passages in which the word is used. Apart from the two instances in Daniel, there are no other passages in the OT in which is the singular is used for either word but the plural is used in English translation. However, I still think that "evenings and mornings" is a correct translation of עֶרֶב בֹּקֶר in the two passages in Daniel. I was just wondering what the thinking of the translators might have been.

Leonard Jayawardena

Michael Abernathy wrote:I'm not sure but I don't think you can find a plural for morning or evening in Biblical Hebrew. It could just be that the same form was used for either singular or plural.
Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy

I would agree that "evenings" (ערבים) and "mornings" (בקרים) do not appear in the Tanach. You can be sure of that.

As it is, it's actually common for large numbers to appear with the singular form. In fact, numbers over twenty most often appear with the singular form. I'm not sure why this is, but it's perfectly fine to say עשרים איש or עשרים אנשים. Both are acceptable.

Jason Hare wrote:I would agree that "evenings" (ערבים) and "mornings" (בקרים) do not appear in the Tanach. You can be sure of that.

Jason, It looks like you have skipped right over my post! I have given all the OT references in which עֶרֶב is used in the plural.

Leonard Jayawardena

I stand corrected. If I'm reading Waltke correctly, it looks like when a plural number precedes the noun it relates to the noun may be either singular or plural. See Gen. 5:20; 11:24; 1 Kings 20:1 for examples of when a singular noun is used. For a plural noun see Ezek. 41:6 and Gen 32:16. He doesn't give a reason for this use.
Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy

Leonard Jayawardena wrote:

Michael Abernathy wrote:I'm not sure but I don't think you can find a plural for morning or evening in Biblical Hebrew. It could just be that the same form was used for either singular or plural.
Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy

The word for "evening" is used in the plural in Ex. 12:6; 16:12; 29:39; 29:41; 30:8; Lev. 23:5; Num. 9:3; 9:5; 9:11; 28:4, 8. The Hebrew expression in all these passages is בֵּין הָעַרְבָּיִם , literally, "between the evenings." The word for "morning" is not used elsewhere in the plural, but that is because there was no need for the plural in the passages in which the word is used. Apart from the two instances in Daniel, there are no other passages in the OT in which is the singular is used for either word but the plural is used in English translation. However, I still think that "evenings and mornings" is a correct translation of עֶרֶב בֹּקֶר in the two passages in Daniel. I was just wondering what the thinking of the translators might have been.

Leonard Jayawardena

ערבים here is not plural but dual. I thought we were talking about the plural form, specifically.

Jason Hare wrote:ערבים here is not plural but dual. I thought we were talking about the plural form, specifically.

You are right. The word is used in the passages I cited in the dual. Mea culpa!

Leonard Jayawardena

Shalom Leonard,

It may not be proper to conclude that such a justification determined the syntax of Dan 8:14 as there are other determimants of sentence structure and word morphology appearing in the Tanakh. These include the author's own style, the date of writing and/or the redactor's grammatical preference.

Lascelles James

L'hitraot
.

jacob wrote:It may not be proper to conclude that such a justification determined the syntax of Dan 8:14 as there are other determimants of sentence structure and word morphology appearing in the Tanakh. These include the author's own style, the date of writing and/or the redactor's grammatical preference.

Could you please elaborate on the above?

Leonard Jayawardena