Genesis 1:5
And elohim is calling-out to the Light `Hot-one,` and to the Dark-one he has called-out `Night-hers.`16 And he is becoming dusk, and he is becoming dawn, a hot-one of one.
| 16 | Her Night The Day he is calling-out (incomplete), Her Night he has called-out (complete). Are the differences in these forms meaningless or meaningful? The noun for night לַ֥יְלָ, is masculine and most often found with this (feminine) suffix לַ֥יְלָה. Thought by some to be an emphatic form, by others the “directional/locative hay”. The “locative hay” ה is also the same as the feminine 3rd person possessive suffix. The primary meaning is the feminine possessive. All instances are rendered and highlighted with the suffix -her. No one could imagine that "Night" was speaking/prophesying a particular Woman, so the idea of a "direction" and "location" was attributed to it. But why then, is the Day not written with a directional suffix? And what sense does it make to say that "Night" has a direction or location? But is it a pointless directional suffix or something much deeper? Consider the fact that about six times this masculine noun “night” is found with a feminine plural suffix: “To put in front in the Dawn your kind one, and your firm one in the/Their Nights [lel-ot].” Psalm 92:2 RBT On the feminine plural suffix attached to a masculine noun the scholars are silent. A single, unique feminine construct לִּילִ֔ית Lilith (#3917) called by many a "night-demon" or "night-creature", appears in a prophecy: ‘And the desert-dwellers have met near the howlers, And the satyr is calling-out upon his friend. Only there Lilith has caused to wink, and she has found to-herself a resting place.” Isaiah 34:14 RBT The masculine plural for nights, laylim does not exist in the Hebrew. The suffix is not understood. Brown-Driver-Briggs says, “probably לילי and ending הָ radical, and not ה locative.” Yet others have suggested that it is directional/locative and suppose it to mean at night. Night is not a place but a condition as is the day. But in the Hebrew "day" and "night" are found with definite articles that cannot be overlooked. “Night” is found with the definite article, i.e. the Night, about 107 times, to reveal a definite place or object. See Gesenius, Real and Supposed remains of Early Case Endings. According to Gesenius, “the accusative form is preserved in Hebrew most certainly and clearly in the (usually toneless) ending ־ָה…This is appended to the substantive: (a) Most commonly to express direction towards an object, or motion to a place, e.g. יָ֫מָּה seaward, westward, קֵ֫דְמָה eastward, צָפ֫וֹנָה northward, אַשּׁ֫וּרָה to Assyria, בָּבֶ֫לָה to Babylon, חֶ֫רָה (from הַר) to the mountain, Gn 1410, אַ֫רְצָה to the earth, בַּ֫יְתָה to the house, תִּרְצָ֫תָה to Tirzah” The notion of a "directional suffix" apparently was satisfying enough to the scholars and translators to not even translate it. In the long run, it became a reason not to translate it, but leave it out altogether. For additional knowledge of the subject see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminative_case and Meek, Theophile James. “The Hebrew Accusative of Time and Place.” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 60, no. 2, 1940, pp. 224–233. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/594010. |