KR:
> Every time I had seen this transliterated into English, it was “Havenu shalom
> …” > which clearly is not a hiphil.
הבנו havenu, if heard by a BHebrew speaker, might be a word. It would mean
"give us (to ...)!" (imperative, but 'us' as the direct object, not an indirect
object as is possible in English), which does not make sense in the sentence,
nor is such a word attested, ever, as far as I know. (Nor was this even the
suggestion offered, see below.)
With "h(a)venu shalom `alekem", one's ears would interpret or hear "hevenu
shalom `alekem". This happens all the time when people speak in every
language. Alternatively, that is why people invented questions. If a form
doesn't make sense, a person can pitch it back to the speaker, re-phrased,
or else ask, 'what do you mean to say?' Again, this is something that happens
all day long in every language.
> I thought Sébastian had merely made a typo when
> he wrote the transliteration “Hevenu …”
>
>>> [KR] is that this is
>>> from the irregularly conjugated verb YHB,
So far so good. But you didn't correctly explain that verb either.
"havenu" would have meant 'place us, give us' where "us" would
have been the direct object, which wouldn't fit the sentence, and
certainly didn't and couldn't fit your proposal "let us deliver ..."
The explanation was simply not Hebrew, first-year or otherwise.
KR:
> Concerning this verb, it is used 22 times (according to a concordance) and not
> once does it have the initial yod nor other indication that one should be
> there.
> So where does the traditional root YHB come from?
Interesting. You were the one who said that the root was Y.H.B. Apparently
you were "correct" without being aware of it. You will notice that imperatives
formed from 'pe-yod' roots drop their first letter, like tse' "go out"
from y.tS.'.,
or lek "go" from y.l.k., or red "go down" from y.r.d., or da` "know"
from y.d.`.
So hab/haba /habi/habu is exactly what is expected for a set of qal imperatives
from y.h.b. and that is exactly what occurs in the HebBible. It only
occurs as an imperative.
y.h.b., of course, had dropped out of normal usage and was idiomatically
restricted to the imperative in Hebrew, it still is to this day. If
you want to find the
cognate verb in unrestricted use you will need to look at other
Semitic languages.
However, the verb in the song was hebenu הבאנו, a hifil with a root b.w.'.
(PS: I would get a better concordance. Even-shoshan lists 33 occurrences for
the imperative from y.h.b. See below.)
KR:
> This is also an example of why one needs to be careful about etymology: there
> is a homograph HBH which has a different meaning, used in Genesis 11 and
> Exodus 1:10. It really should be listed separately from YHB.
Yes, we/you should be careful. Because habah and y.h.b. are the same word
and this has been recognized as such for over three millenia.
Words used for 'give' in Hebrew ('ten' "give!") and other Semitic
languages have a wide application, including contexts that in English
can mean 'place, put' and
in the imperative in various modal idioms, like "allow" (literally
'give [me] to ...).
haba is etymologically/literally 'give' (plus the request marker '-ah'),
with an application "let's" when followed by a first person plural verb,
as in "hava nagila". When followed by a noun (e.g. Gen 30.1),
then it is a simple imperative 'give, place', (like the plural in Josh
18.4, et al.)
[KR
>>> I understand this as possibly a qal imperative first person
>>> plural, which would have the emphasis “Let us deliver…”]
...
RB:
>> Nor can the root y.h.b. explain the form. The imperative
>> of this verb is used in BH as 'hab/hava/havi/habu' "give".
>> (This verb, too, is used in a very well-known modern song,
>> hava nagila "hey-c'mon, let's rejoice!".) And when
>> haba is used in this idiomatic sense in BH it does not use the
>> preposition `al 'on/upon' nor does it add an indirect-object
>> suffix. So the suggestion was without any merit.
The discussion on *habenu הבנו* "give us (direct obj)!"[sic]
remains without application to the first song but I suppose that it could
be used for teaching correct Hebrew by example of what not to do:
havenu could not have meant "let us deliver ..." in any Hebrew,
it was nonsense, static.
As for hif`il, imperative and suffix conjugation:
havienu הביאנו would mean 'bring us (obj)!' (not applicable to context)
(short hif`il forms retain the 'i' vowel when object suffixes are added)
and
hevenu הבאנו means 'we've brought',
as in
hevenu shalom `alexem הבאנו שלום עליכם.
braxot
Randall Buth
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
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