A printable version of this post is available here.
In a previous post,
I noted some advantages of electronic relative to print resources for the study
of ancient Hebrew. I will drive the point home again here, this time in
reference to The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH). The dictionary is a treasure-trove of data. One
can only hope that someday, DCH in its entirety will be available online, with
hotlinks to all references, biblical and extra-biblical. It would then be revisable
and updateable by a community of scholars of the editor’s choosing. At the most
fundamental levels, that of data presentation and coverage, it needs both, as I
now demonstrate. אכל’s statistics, according to DCH, are 809 (Hebrew Bible); 11 (Ben
Sira); 100 (Qumran and related non-Biblical texts).
כל מאכל אוכל גרגרת אך יש אוכל ]מאוכ[ל] נע[ים
but some fare is more pleasant than other fare.
כל] מאכל [תסוגר ב]כרש] אך יש מאכל ממאכל תנעם
but some food pleases more than other food.
מאכל is feminine, as in Hab 1:16. Beentjes reads [--] before תסוגר (תְּסֻגַּר in biblical Hebrew). I follow Ben-Hayyim in reading [---] כל. One hopes that digital photographs of the ben Sira fragments will soon be available to all.[3]
אַל־תּ֭פּוֹל בְּיַ֣ד נַפְשֶׁ֑ךָ וְתִעֲבָ֗ה חֵילָֽךְ> על̊יך<
עָלֶ֣יךָ תֹּ֭אכַל וּפִרְיְךָ֣ תְּשָׁרֵ֑שׁ וְ֜הִנִּיחַ֗תְךָ כְּעֵ֣ץ יָבֵֽשׁ
כִּי־נֶ֣פֶשׁ עַ֭זָּה תְּשַׁחֵ֣ת בְּעָלֶ֑יהָ וְשִׂמְחַ֣ת שׂ֜וֹנֵ֗א תַּשִׂיגֵֽם
Fall not into the grip of your desire; 2 Sam 24:14
it will defile your strength: Ezek 16:25
your foliage it will eat, Ps 1:3; Jer 17:8
your fruit destroy; Job 31:12
it will leave you a withered tree, Isa 56:3
for fierce desire devastates its owners,
Isa 56:11; Hos 11:9
the glee of a foe will overtake them.
Ex 15:9; Isa 14:29; Mic 7:8; Ps 35:19; Prov 24:17;
Deut 28:15, 45; Isa 35:10; 51:11; 59:9
כל נכסֿ תאכל חיה אך יש מכה ממכה תנעם
A whole herd a wild animal may devour,
but one kill pleases more than another kill.
David J. A. Clines, The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 1993-). Order from Eisenbrauns.
Volume 1, Alef (1993)
Volume 2, Bet-Vav (1995)
Volume 3, Zayin-Teth (1996)
Volume 4, Yodh-Lamedh (1998)
Volume 5, Mem-Nun (2001)
Volume 6, Samekh-Pe (2007, forthcoming)
Atlanta: SBL, 2006).
Driver
Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1912 [1889]; repr. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2004).
GKC
Bellingham: Logos Research Systems, 2003).
Mandelkern
Scholar’s Library
[1] The raw data is useful, but it would be helpful if the analytical dimension of Grammatical Relationships were beefed up. For example, the referents of pronominal suffixes might be disambiguated; a grouping algorithm based on semantic content applied; and verb-preposition combinations listed analytically.
[2] It would be nice if CATSS were revised so that accurate concordances were derivable from it. The searches need to be made bracket-insensitive.
[3] The Penn/Cambridge Geniza Fragment Project’s website contains fabulous photographs of select holdings of Penn and Cambridge. A few photographs of Cairo Genizah ben Sira fragments are viewable online at the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit site.
[4] According to Friedrich Böttcher,
the nun is used “fur lautlich bequemen Anschluss vor א, ע, ה, נ, מ” (Ausführliches Lehrbuch der hebräischen Sprache [ed. Ferdinand Mühlau; 2 vols.; Leipzig: Barth, 1866-68]) 2 §§930a). Based on Sir 30:19 and other passages, one
might add ו to the list. 45:20 is in pausal position, the other
context which seems to trigger the preservation of the nun. The matter
remains debated. See W. Randall Garr, “Paragogic nun in Rhetorical
Perspective,” in Biblical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting:
Typological and Historical Perspectives (ed. Steven E. Fassberg and Avi
Hurvitz; Publication of the Institute for Advanced Studies, The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem 1; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns; Jerusalem: Magnes, 2006)
65-74; and references there.
[5] Those wishing to find fault with the practice of vocalizing and accenting non-biblical texts are misinformed. As Israel Yeivin notes (Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah [ed. and tr., E. J. Revell; SBLMS 5; n.p.: Scholars Press, 1980] 160), the occasional verse in the Geniza fragments of ben Sira is pointed and accented. In some manuscripts, liturgical poetry (piyyuṭ) is pointed and accented. The pointing and accenting of a non-biblical text is to be understood as an act of devotion, and implies no disrespect for the biblical text.
[6] It is disappointing that AFPMA parses Prov 23:3, translated in NJPSV by ‘Do not crave for his dainties, for they are [lit., it is] counterfeit food,’ as if the two clauses it contains are unrelated. The וְ is correctly tagged as “discourse level,” but the discourse structure of which it is a part is not described by AFPMA. Prov 23:1-3 is a six-clause sentence of considerable complexity and beauty. The division into pesuqim in MT adheres to the text’s prosodic structure at the cost of obscuring its syntactic structure: 23:1a is the protasis; 1b-2b a first apodosis; 3 a second apodosis. The sentence grammar of ancient Hebrew is a neglected topic. AFPMA is an improvable resource in terms of supplying a tagged database on the basis of which one might research the subject matter.
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