5. The satisfied hire themselves out for bread And the hungry become fat. The barren one bears seven And the one with many children wastes away
6. The LORD causes death and preserves life He sends down to Sheol and raises up.
------------ I tried to keep the poetry in this passage by adding definite articles and trying to balance each statement.
Interesting word in verse 5., חָדְלּוּ, which seems to mean both "stop, cease" and "become fat, successfuL" according to Holladay, but only "stop, cease" according to the BDB.
Re: 1 Sam 2: 5-6lhynardJanuary 24 2006, 04:33:44 UTC
Right, I'm aware of that.
But Holladay also lists it as a separate root altogether. So I don't think there is any connection -- at least not a late one.
The word in the passage is hadhellu, which does not look like any form I ever learned. (Holladay calls it qal!) The form of the other root ("to cease") would be hadhlu (or in some rare instances, hadhalu or hadhallu). Why this random doubling of the third root consonant? The two verbs also seem to have entirely separate imperfect forms.
I omitted the עד before v.5 line 3. I could have put "while the barren one bears seven, the one with many wastes away" but I thought the meaning survived if I just maintained the rhythm of the previous 2 lines.
Does that makes sense? Didn't you find the placement of that עד at the end of a line very odd?
Re: 1 Samuel 2:5-6lhynardJanuary 20 2006, 17:03:57 UTC
In addition to the two things talmida pointed out, I found the imperfect form (actually the conversive/jussive form) at the end of verse 6 very strange. The other three are very clearly participles and then the pattern is broken. I translated it as a future, because the resurrection has not yet occured in the eyes of Hannah and Hebrew has no future participle. Maybe the switch of verb forms is to emphasize? Any ideas?
Change of formstalmidaJanuary 23 2006, 18:03:29 UTC
Resurrection? You lost me there.
I didn't particularly notice the verb change, but if the other 3 were clearly participles then I think that there are a couple of different ways of emphasizing it.
1. God kills, protects, brings to Sheol. He also raises up! (the important part)
2. God kills, protects, brings to Sheol. Only HE comes up (the ones he brings to Sheol stay there).
Could it be imperfect for poetic reasons? And in what sense could this verb be jussive? (I understand that it is vav conversive, but wouldn't jussive be "Let him raise up" or "May he raise up"? That can't be right.)
Re: Change of formslhynardJanuary 24 2006, 05:30:14 UTC
The verb is conversive/jussive in form, that is, it has the form of a conversive or jussive -- they are identical in this case. Semantically, I would definitely argue for the conversive use in most cases. However, in poetry, these forms can also just be a simply imperfect semantically, not the conversive (perfect-like) form
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Comments 10
And the hungry become fat.
The barren one bears seven
And the one with many children wastes away
6. The LORD causes death and preserves life
He sends down to Sheol and raises up.
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I tried to keep the poetry in this passage by adding definite articles and trying to balance each statement.
Interesting word in verse 5., חָדְלּוּ, which seems to mean both "stop, cease" and "become fat, successfuL" according to Holladay, but only "stop, cease" according to the BDB.
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Holladay is just a condensation -- maybe you have access to the several volumes of the full Koehler-Baumgartner? I wonder if my University has a copy?
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But Holladay also lists it as a separate root altogether. So I don't think there is any connection -- at least not a late one.
The word in the passage is hadhellu, which does not look like any form I ever learned. (Holladay calls it qal!) The form of the other root ("to cease") would be hadhlu (or in some rare instances, hadhalu or hadhallu). Why this random doubling of the third root consonant? The two verbs also seem to have entirely separate imperfect forms.
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Does that makes sense? Didn't you find the placement of that עד at the end of a line very odd?
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The barren one bears seven,The one plentiful of sons withers.
"YHWH is the One killing and letting live,Bringing down to Sh'ol2 - and He will raise up.
1 or "hire themselves out"
2 the place of the dead
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I didn't particularly notice the verb change, but if the other 3 were clearly participles then I think that there are a couple of different ways of emphasizing it.
1. God kills, protects, brings to Sheol. He also raises up! (the important part)
2. God kills, protects, brings to Sheol. Only HE comes up (the ones he brings to Sheol stay there).
Could it be imperfect for poetic reasons? And in what sense could this verb be jussive? (I understand that it is vav conversive, but wouldn't jussive be "Let him raise up" or "May he raise up"? That can't be right.)
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