num 16:16 is very precise as to whom the command is addressed: to korah and his men only, not to aaron, even if he was there. but it is also very precise as to who has to be there tomorrow: korah, and his men, and aaron. the spirit of the sentence is: "you take care your men will be there - and i will make sure aaron will be there too".
as to the general question of plural vs singular, the general context is not that of a command but that of a verb in general, in terms of both number and gender. the question of whether the verb form comes before or after the person's name is a question of fronting, and the order in most of the cases can be explained out in general terms of emphasis, continuity etc. e.g. in num 1:3, the entire sentence starts with MBN (SRYM $NH... (a topical fronting made for emphasis on the details of the event). this makes it syntactically uncomfortable to squeeze everything before the verb, being a command. but moses and aaron too needed emphasis, and fronting is ruled out. the solution was to divide the clause into two, the second enjoying allipsis. as to deut 6:4, 2chr 20:15,13:4,15:2, jer 2:4, the vocative "listen" clearly demanded to be first, and its singular/plural value agrees with the number of listeners (considering israel in deut 6:4 as a single entity). is there a vocative like "listen to me" which does not agree with the addressee(s) number or gender? nir cohen _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
