B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

I was merely pointing out that 3 John contains a contrast between pen ink and speaking face to face; Baruch's words aren't contrasting these two things, but pointing out how one led to the other (He spoke - I wrote). A "parallelism" to me indicates something that goes in the same direction of thought - a contrast is therefore the opposite of that as it's two different directions.

Nevertheless, still irrelevant at the end of it all.

In order for the pointing out of "with ink" to be an idiom, we're gonna have to find evidence somewhere that isn't 8 centuries apart

At least it enriched Hebrew with this useful, though curious (root?), word דיו DYO, 'ink'. I understand that in Arabic it is חבר XBR.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

S_Walch wrote:In order for the pointing out of "with ink" to be an idiom, we're gonna have to find evidence somewhere that isn't 8 centuries apart

I see no signs that this is an idiom. You’re right about questioning it.

Now to put some more wood on the fire—I double, triple checked the grapheme בד which probably had four or five pronunciations, which is listed five times in my dictionary with different meanings. One of which I list as false fortuneteller Isaiah 16:6, 44:25, Hosea 11:6. Did it always have a negative meaning as I have it here, or is it like בצע which could have a negative or positive meaning depending on the context? Assuming the latter for reasons of discussion, the plural would refer to his prophetic message. Is this what we have here?

We have other examples where the masculine plural is used to indicate an action, or the context of an action, so this could be a masculine plural indicating the action of making the message? Or to translate Baruch, did he say “… and I wrote his message upon the book.”? Fits the context.

What do you all say?

Karl W. Randolph.

Hi Karl, well I am only going to make observations here, so I leave them up to you to sort them out

1. I also looked at this grapheme and there are quite a number of words in scripture where it has everything to do with separation, disjoin, divide, apart. Things like babbling and false words, so a general picture we have here certainly. But I fail to see the link between this and the masculine plural in order to arrive at a destination where ink is removed and book is placed there in its stead? Sorry.

2. You say that the above fits the context, but I tried hard to see this, really, I simply could not, instead I saw just another riddle. I say this because the context lies quite obviously in the question in verse 17, " how did you write all these things from his mouth"? Is there any possible conceivable idea that Baruch might have been sarcastic? To be honest this was my first thought when I read this, but I went with the idiom idea due to a kind of religiosity mode in the subconscious. However my initial gut feeling was sarcasm. Obviously hard to convey in words on paper, but there is a possibility when one considers the silliness of the question. The actual conversation might have taken the lines of , guys, I wrote it with ink, how else do you think I wrote this. There is a kind of 'Leitwort' going on here which I feel justifies the sarcastic undertone a bit, and that is the double use of the word 'mouth' the question and answer is rather long drawn out and seems to lay emphasis on the obvious when the obvious is not needed.
Kind Regards
chris.

Galena wrote:But I fail to see the link between this and the masculine plural in order to arrive at a destination where ink is removed and book is placed there in its stead? Sorry.

I think Karl meant "his message" as a meaning of בדיו, not "book"

Karl:
This would be a similar proposal to mine regarding בדיו being a possible scribal mistake for דבריו "his words". Do we however not need to have it read
ואני כתב על הספר את בדיו
?

S_Walch wrote:

Galena wrote:But I fail to see the link between this and the masculine plural in order to arrive at a destination where ink is removed and book is placed there in its stead? Sorry.

I think Karl meant "his message" as a meaning of בדיו, not "book"

You’re quite right, the word ספר “book” is already in the verse.

S_Walch wrote:Karl:
This would be a similar proposal to mine regarding בדיו being a possible scribal mistake for דבריו "his words". Do we however not need to have it read
ואני כתב על הספר את בדיו
?

Your suggestion is possible, but without any evidence that that’s what actually happened. Even though it’s sometimes more difficult, I prefer to go with what is actually there, then try to make “corrections”. This is also why I reject many of the Masoretic Qere readings.

‎בד as a false fortuneteller is found in Isaiah 16:6, 44:25, Hosea 11:6. Tradition says that it’s derived from ‎בדא “to make up“ found in 1 Kings 12:33, and Nehemiah 6:8. A noun in plural sometimes refers to an abstract idea rather than to a specific object, so for example, נעריו refers to “his youthful age” rather than to “his youths” Genesis 8:21 and 1 Samuel 17:33. So here I see בדיו and so ask does this refer to the message carried by a בד rather than to the בד himself? Does this mean that the word בדא doesn’t mean “to make up” rather “to announce” or something similar? And בד a person who makes an announcement?

Galena wrote:… I say this because the context lies quite obviously in the question in verse 17, " how did you write all these things from his mouth"? Is there any possible conceivable idea that Baruch might have been sarcastic?

The word איך as an indicator of a question is sometimes used in the sense of “how is it that …” e.g. Genesis 26:9 and Exodus 6:30. In this context, the question is a bit foolish, and a simple answer shows it.

Karl W. Randolph.