Psalm 19/Notes/Grammar.Vv. 10-11.827821
From Psalms: Layer by Layer
- Some scholars want to emend יראת to read אמרת (so BHS, citing Ps 119:38), but there is no manuscript evidence to support this reading. It is for good reason that modern translations have rejected it.
- On the construction עֵדוּת יְהוָה נֶאֱמָנָה "YHWH's rules are faithfulness >> faithful" cf. Brockelman 14be.
- Older grammarians analyzed the participle הנחמדים as in apposition to משפטי יהוה. E.g., "The demonstrative force of the article... includes those instances in which the article, mostly to a participle, joins on a new statement concerning a preceding noun. Although such participles, etc., are no doubt primarily regarded always as in apposition to a preceding substantive, the article nevertheless has in some of these examples almost the force of הוּא (הִיא/הֵמָּה) as the subject of a noun-clause [cf. Pss 33:15; 49:7; 104:3]... When such a participle has another co-ordinate with it, the latter is used without the article, since according to the above it strictly speaking represents a second predicate...; e.g., Job 5:10" (GKC 126b). So Hupfeld: "Aposs. zunächst zu משפטי יהוה, aber dem Sinn nach zu allen vorhergg. Wörtern für d. Gesetz. Zur Form der Appos. mit dem Artikel vgl. 18,33.48. 49,7" (1855, 419).
- Waltke and O'Connor discuss use of ה in הנחמדים as an example of the "anaphoric use of the article," which is "based on the previous mention of the thing referred to" (IBHS 13.5.2d). In this usage, the article functions in a manner similar to a relative particle. This "so-called relative use of the article is most common with participles" (IBHS 13.5.2d).