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Q: Jeremiah 31:10 Male pronoun Israel

7:53 PM

@ironman99 depends on what you're seeking

VTC, NaRQ

Why are the masculin pronouns "he" and "him" used to describe Israel in this passage?

@swasheck I agree. We need to guess what is being asked, so I left a comment.

@JonEricson i'm getting progressively grumpier. i just VTC and move on

8:12 PM

@swasheck Grumpy about stuff here or just in general?

kidding - mostly. just that whole "you're getting grumpier in your old age" thing :)

@ironman99 I'm a fan of Cost of Discipleship. It's got more theology than I ever need.

@swasheck Oh yeah. Me too. ;)

8:36 PM

hey ... it works!

9:08 PM

@swasheck Speaking of working, how is the project for building a Bible footnoted with BH questions coming?

@JonEricson, you here?

@MonicaCellio Yep.

What's up?

@JonEricson I think I see what's going on with that Jeremiah question. (Not the verse-mismatch thing; that's a head-scratcher. But the question itself.) The Hebrew there is: וְאִמְרוּ, מְזָרֵה יִשְׂרָאֵל יְקַבְּצֶנּוּ, וּשְׁמָרוֹ, כְּרֹעֶה עֶדְרוֹ.

@JonEricson slowly ... the biggest problem is the formatting of references

that's from "and say"

9:20 PM

@MonicaCellio I'm afraid I don't understand.

וּשְׁמָרוֹ - guard him is definitely singular possession (him, not them). But the previous phrase - יְקַבְּצֶנּוּ - gather (pronoun) -- looks plural to me.

(Sorry, was typing while you were.)

@MonicaCellio Interesting. So the question might be about a shift from plural to singular?

I don't actually know that root, so I assume I'm parsing it correctly but would want to check a dictionary before trying to update the question. But I think it's that word that's causing the problem. A more literal translation would appear to be "gather them and guard him".

yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

I'm going to close the question until it can be edited into something answerable.

also, I'm used to a "-nu" ending meaning "us", not "them", just to confuse matters.

@JonEricson I agree.

9:38 PM

@MonicaCellio, interesting.

derp

@Ami your Hebrew is better than mine. Am I reading that right, that it's not gather him or them but us?

Yes, I agree. It could be translated as: "He who scattered Israel will gather us, and watch over (him) like a Shepherd watches his flock."

But I'm not a grammarian...

@Ami that's what I thought. Thanks. How odd.

There may be some grammatical nuance here which I'm not aware of.

9:44 PM

There's a broader context; I'll have to reread the surrounding chapter or two for context before saying whether that makes any sense.

It happens to be that we just read this chapter in Shul [Synagogue] over Rosh Hashana

We could edit the question to focus on this, though we have no idea what OP's intent was and it's a first post, so I'd rather give the poster a chance to fix it first.

@Ami yeah, but I was focusing more on message than grammar. :-)

@JonEricson, how did your class go?

@MonicaCellio, I don't have any commentaries with me right now, I'll have to come back to this later.

On second thought, I could be wrong....

This definitely requires further investigation.

@Ami Rashi's got nothing, but I don't have anything else handy. And I don't assume that either of us will get to this before Yom Kippur, but if either of us does, we should definitely share. :-)

For sure.

10:03 PM

@swasheck I've been thinking about that. It's a tough problem made tougher by inconsistencies in verse references. See: hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/2467/…

@Ami It went well. I did have someone ask a question I'd never considered: Is a lion carcass unclean for a Nazarite to touch?

Also, I think your question about how Samson could be listed among the Judges is a very good one.

Interesting...is the Nazarite subject to the same purity laws as a priest?

@Ami I'm not at all sure.

I had assumed a dead body is a dead body.

But the story seems to tie Samson's strength to his vow and he didn't lose the vow until he lost his hair. I'm going to ask that one here soonish.

@JonEricson i actually found a python library that i'm going to use next

@swasheck I've heard the Python library list was pretty extensive. Even more than Perl's.

@JonEricson, wikipedia's Nazirite page has some interesting info on this topic

1) Samson was a unique type of Nazirite

10:10 PM

@JonEricson having ZERO knowledge of perl ... i cant vouch

2) "...a nazirite can contract other kinds of ritual impurity [other than a dead body]. A nazirite that finds an unburied corpse is obligated to bury it, even though he will become defiled in the process."

Nazirite

In the Hebrew Bible, a Nazirite or Nazarite, (in Hebrew: נזיר, nazir), refers to one who voluntarily took a vow described in . The proper noun "Nazirite" comes from the Hebrew word nazir meaning "consecrated" or "separated". This vow required the man or woman to: *Abstain from wine, wine vinegar, grapes, raisins, intoxicating liquors and vinegar distilled from such. and refrain from eating or drinking any substance that contains any trace of grapes *Refrain from cutting the hair on one's head; but to allow the locks of the head's hair to grow. *Not to become impure by corpses or graves,...

"A Samson-like nazirite is a permanent nazirite and is not enjoined to avoid corpses."

@Ami Huh. Sounds like a category made up after the fact to explain Samson.

I don't think so. An angel appeared to Samson's parents and gave very clear guidelines about what Samson was to observe.

@Ami this is the key

"...the boy will be a Nazirite of God from the womb until the day of his death.’"

This makes Samson's observance fundamentally different from the usual Naziritic rite which is temporary.

"They must be holy until the period of their dedication to the Lord is over; they must let their hair grow long." (Numbers 6:5)

10:22 PM

@Ami That's true. I guess the corpse-handling thing is what I think is ad hoc.

Question: is Samson an answer to his own riddle? Is Samson an embodiment of "out of the strong, something sweet"?

@Ami That is interesting! Eli Rosencruft's answer is thought-provoking.

If you have time: lookstein.org/articles/sphinx.htm

@MonicaCellio, according to the BDB, יקבצנו is masculine singular which means that there is no grammatical problem with the verse as far as I can tell.

Good night all.

10:45 PM

@Ami Good night (and thanks)!