Re: Poem for the day

On Wed, 11 Sep 2002 17:44:25 -0400 Muke Tever <mktvr@...> writes:
> > Vekhol yameinu hhokhmatekha yabi`u.
> > (and-all our-days your-wisdom express)
> > I couldn't figure out a way to say "the wisdom of Thy creation"
> without
> > it sounding like the wisdom belonging to the creatures themselves,
> and
> > not the wisdom inherent in (or expressed by) the act of creation.
> Hmm, that is kind of a complicated sentence structure.  ("...attest
> your wisdom in creating things" ?)
> Wasn't Biblical Hebrew verb-initial?
>     *Muke!
-

Well, sort of...  the dominant word order was VSO, as in |bereishit bara
eloqim et hashamayim ve'et ha'aretz| "in-the-beginning, created God
(obj)-the-sky and-(obj)-the-earth".  However, sometimes the O or the S
get fronted, and in the sentence above, |vekhol yameinu hhokhmatekha
yabi`u|, the verb just "felt right" to me in final position.  Whether
that's correct from a Biblical Hebrew poetics standpoint, i wouldn't know
for sure.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "yeish hhokhekh miseviveinu;
  akh im hhoshekh qayam, vehahhoshekh hu shel haya`ar,
  az vaday hahhoshekh tov."
     ~ song of the BaMbuti in troubled times (Hebrew translation)

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