B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

According to my simplistic thinking "definiteness" means that a thing has a name (which is like a tag), or is being pointed at.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

Kirk,

Your take on this is really interesting. I looked up the targum on this verse. What he does with the three Holy's lends credence to your idea. On the hand he curiously seems to take מלא as a verb. Can anyone in this forum confirm the English rendering of the targum's Aramaic?

From Sefaria:

וּמְקַבְּלִין דֵין מִן דֵין וְאָמְרִין קַדִישׁ בִּשְׁמֵי מְרוֹמָא עִלָאָה בֵית שְׁכִנְתֵּיהּ קַדִישׁ עַל אַרְעָא עוֹבַד גְבוּרְתֵּיהּ קַדִישׁ לְעָלַם וּלְעָלְמֵי עָלְמַיָא יְיָ צְבָאוֹת מַלְיָא כָל אַרְעָא זִיו יְקָרֵיהּ:
And one cried unto another, and they were saying, Holy in the highest and exalted heavens is the house of His Shekinah, holy upon the earth is the work of His might, holy for ever, world without end, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of the brightness of His glory.

Kirk Lowery wrote:
‎מְלֹ֥א כָל־הָאָ֖רֶץ כְּבוֹדֽוֹ׃

It is a simple verbless clause: two noun phrases appended together implying equivalency. Since ‎כְּבוֹדֽוֹ is the most definite (by morphology), I understand it as the subject. The other key fact is that ‎מְלֹ֥א is a masculine singular construct noun. Note: it is not a verb.

Kirk, I’m interested in the methodology you used in doing your analysis in the 1990’s.

The only method I’ve been able to conjure up in my mind would be to decide from the context which of the noun phrases in your data collection of verbless noun phrase pairs was the subject and then to use that criterion as the tool for developing the ladder of definiteness. But....

I’ve checked online and see that copies of the book with your paper in it are available. But I also noted that a person would need a degree in linguistics to understand the titles of some of the other papers.

Don't both translations have similar semantic value, though, differing only syntactically and semiotically? Both seem to mean that life fills the earth, and that this is metonymous to His glory. (First Corinthians 11:7 gives some corroboration to the semantic interpretation when it calls men the glory of God.)

Adam Balshan wrote:Don't both translations have similar semantic value, though, differing only syntactically and semiotically? Both seem to mean that life fills the earth, and that this is metonymous to His glory

Indeed, the ideas are similar, but they are not exactly the same, in my view. One is saying, "His glory is (seen/defined in part by) in everything that he created on and in the earth," whereas the other is saying, "God's glory (undefined) is found everywhere on earth." In the first, God's acts as Creator glorifies Him, in the second, God is omnipresent as evidenced by his glory found everywhere on earth.

Now, this difference is significance when we consider what is being communicated to Isaiah as a part of his call.

I'm trying to ascertain the meaning of the text and its place in the context. I'm not trying to move to a more abstract theological level beyond the immediate context.

Hi Kirk,

Thanks for taking the time for such a comprehensive and detailed reply. Most of my knowledge of Biblical Hebrew linguistics has focused on areas other than morphology: phonetics, syntax, semantics, discourse analysis, idiom and metaphor, language acquisition and pedagogy, translation theory. I am not sure where the debate concerning the Hebrew verb system over tense and aspect fit in linguistics, but that is also something I’ve attempted to follow.

Your explanation and description of definiteness in general linguistics, BH and in this passage is very clear and helpful.

Is your study on the verbless clause in Judges available in an open access version?