Inconsistent Data Results on Hebrew Searches

[pder3571]

I am doing a video on the word "believe" from the KJV (not my preferred English text), which takes into account the Hebrew results for the word, but I am getting some very inconsistent results.

 

First, my workspace begins with a search for the word "believe" with the KJV with the Range restricted to the Old Testament. The View Analytics shows 19 hits. Okay, Wonderful.

 

Second, I bring up the Hebrew Bible (Biblia Hebraica) Tagged and scroll over the word "believe" in the KJV and see that the Hebrew word is ya'aminu. I right click on ya'aminu and Search For Root. It gives me 396 hits for +aman. When I click on View Analytics, then Analysis, it gives me a long list of Hebrew words associated with aman. Since I am only interested in the verbal aspect of this word, given that in the original search it showed that "believe"/ya'aminu was in the Hiphil stem, I clicked on the gear icon and choose Customize Display. I select Stem and place it under the first Lexical column and click OK. It comes back with eight Qal hits, 46 Niphal, 51 Hiphil, and three Haphel. Okay, all is still well in Dataville, even though things are about to get weird.

 

When I open another tab using Biblia Hebraica and click Search Enter Lexical Forms and type in amn, I am given several forms, but I limit my choice to amn-1, since it coincides with the original search done with the KJV. The result comes back with 96 hit, which is pretty close to the first count of 8+46+51+3, even though it is still quite different.

 

So, I attempt to refine the search by typing in Search, Enter Tag, Verb, Stem, and then select Hiphil. Then, Search, Enter Command, And. Finally, Search, Enter Lexical Forms, amn-1. The result is 73 hits, but that is only half the story. The original verse (Ex. 4:1) from the KJV/Biblia Hebraica where the search began, which showed the word "believe" was translated from the Hebrew ya'aminu, is not even in the final list of verses! Accordance found the form (ya'aminu) in Exodus 4:8, though.

My question is quite simple: What am I doing wrong, here, that I am getting so many conflicted search results?

[David Lang]

Looking at your second screenshot, you did a search for amn-1 <AND> [VERB hifil]. The AND command is looking for two separate words in the same verse, so your search will only return a result which has both amn-1 and a separate verb in the hifil. That's why it misses Exodus 4:1—amn-1 is the only hifil verb in the verse.

 

What you want is to use the at symbol (@) rather than the AND command. The @ joins the VERB tag to the lexical form amn-1 so that both criteria have to be met in the same word. A search for amn-1@[VERB hifil] will find Exodus 4:1.

 

Hope this helps.

[miketisdell]

Additionally, it is always important to remember that the semantic range of Hebrew words and equivalent English words are not always the same. The verb 'amn' is translated by multiple words in English. The following attachment is from a slide presentation I give on bible translation. 

Note: 

The word "order" in "I ordered a book from Amazon" and the word "invite" in "In invited a friend to dinner" are the verb in Hebrew.

The word "order" in Hebrew in "I ordered my children to clean their room" and the word "command" in "I commanded the troops to march 5 miles" are the same verb (but different from the one above). 

 

Additionally the word "order" in "I ordered the books by author and then title" is an entirely different word in Hebrew (this is not indicated in the slide for simplicity).