An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

35.
36. ךָתְּ ְב ִשׁ ְבּ םבּ ֑ ָ תָּ רְ ַבּד ִ וְ
ךָתי ֶ֫
בֵ ְבּ
11.2.6 ןיבּ ֵ
וּנימִ ֫ אי ֲ ךָבְּ 37
They will trust (in) you.
Exod 19:9
And talk about them when you sit at home…
Deut 6:7
a This preposition is at base a noun meaning ‘interval, space between,’ though only
one occurrence of the noun is certain. In the phrase םִינ ַ֫
ֵבּה־שׁי ַ א ִ ‘man of the two
intervals’ (1 Sam 17:4, 23), the ‘space between’ is that between the two armies; thus
the phrase means ‘champion.’ Singular and plural suffixed pronouns are attached to
bên and bênê- respectively; plural suffixes of the first and third persons may also be
attached to the less common bênôt-, yielding the forms benenu/benotenu and bênêhem
and bênôtam. The preposition is paired 126 times in the phrase bên X ûbên Y and 30
times in the phrase bên X ləY. 38 It has either an inclusive sense (i.e., between or
among a quantity of things considered as a group) or an exclusive sense (i.e., between
or among two or more diverse things considered as over against one another).
b As a one-term expression it has an inclusive sense either spatially (simple locative
‘between,’ # 1; manifold locative ‘among, amid, within,’ ## 2–3) or temporally (# 4).
An exceptional distributive sense appears in one late text (# 5).
[Page םירִ זָ גְּ ה ַ ןיבּ ֵ ר ַב ָע ר ֶשׁ אֲ
which passed between those pieces
200]
׃ה ֶלּא֫ ֵ הָ
1.
39
2. םיחִ א ַ ן ֵבּ אוּה י ִכּ
איר֑ ִ ְפַי
3.
׃תוֹבֹחרְ ה ָ ןיבּ ֵ ירִ ֲ
Gen 15:17
He thrives among (his) brothers. 40
Hos 13:15
א (There is) a lion within the streets!
37
For b with psychological predicates that seem to involve the internal organs, see
Pardee on Ugaritic bky bm lb, which he argues means ‘to cry in (not from) the heart’;
UF 8: 217–18. On the question of where tears come from see Terence Collins, “The
Physiology of Tears in the Old Testament,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 33 (1971)
18–38, 185–97.
38
James Barr, “Some Notes on Ben ‘Between’ in Classical Hebrew,” Journal of
Semitic Studies 23 (1978) 1–24, at 3. Barr includes in his count the expression
bĕn...wə-lə in Joel 2:17; bĕn X wəY is not a biblical usage. See also Y. Avishur,
“Expressions of the Type byn ydym in the Bible and Semitic Languages,” Ugarit-
Forschungen 12 (1980) 125–33, on the inclusive use with body parts that occur in
pairs.
39
As Gen 15:10 makes clear, the account refers to two parallel and opposing lines of
sacrificial material.
40
The spelling bn is extremely rare.