gay in Ezekiel 39:11

[Enoch]

  גיא /  גי

 

I think there is an error in instant details on Ezekiel 39:11. But before I report it as such, I thought I would run it by the scholars of Accordance Forum.

The Hebrew word for valley  (    גיא    ) occurs twice in Ezekiel 39:11. The first time (at least) in the construct, lacking the final aleph of the lexeme. The second time with aleph.  The first time Instant details identifies the word as masculine construct. The second time ID does not identify it as to gender or construct vs absolute.

 

Do you agree that ID is wrong in calling the word for valley masculine here instead of feminine? Very soon after this word for valley, we find a feminine participle  (  חסמת      )  with the common feminine pronoun     היא     .   There are no masculine nouns to which this might agree in gender in context unless the word for valley be taken here as feminine.

 

As I opined before, IMHO forms are best identified as to what the particular letter string may be, leaving it to the student to decide which it is when there is ambiguity of form. Thus I am thinking the form should be identified as masculine or feminine.

Edited December 29, 2018 by Enoch

[R. Mansfield]

Accordance to J. J. Owens, both instances should be noun masculine singular construct. But someone else may be able to give more insight. 

[Ron Webber]

You have stumbled upon one of a few anomalous Hebrew nouns that can occur in either gender.¹ A few others are “light” (אור), “path” (אֹרך), “vineyard” (כֶּרֶם), “gate” (שַׁעַ֫ר), and occasionally the word “place” (מָקוֹם).  You are correct in assuming the feminine form here because of the modifiers.

 

Blessings, 

 

Ron Webber

 

¹ See  §134m in Paul Joüon and T. Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, vol. 27 of Subsidia biblica. Accordance electronic ed. (Roma: Pontificio istituto biblico, 2006), 465. 

Edited December 30, 2018 by Ron Webber