Hebrew Question: NET Bible suggests "disjunctiveness" in Gen.2:9...why?

David Paul

It says in a note: "The verse [Gen. 2:9] ends with a disjunctive clause providing a parenthetical bit of information about the existence of two special trees in the garden."

In what manner is this indicated in the sentence? Seems pretty conjunctive to me. Oh, and btw, this is all one sentence in Hebrew--not two.

DMB

I don't know if you read Lee Fields 'Hebrew and You' much (Zondervan Academic), but he has a quick and dirty:

"Waw is the king of conjunctions. It is always prefixed to a word; it never stands alone. It is most commonly translated “and,” but it is not accurate to say that it means and. When Waw is the connecter, the thing to notice is whether the Waw is prefixed to a verb or a non-verb. Waw + Verb constructions are called Conjunctive or Online clauses; Waw + Non-verb constructions are called Disjunctive or Offline clauses."

That's if NET's comment was relative to Hebrew; in more generic, the and, and, and is disjunctive (the former not demanding the latter).

But that's only if you don't subscribe to Claus Westermann's discussion of how the 'ands' arrived (one tree, two trees, or added tree).

And to advertise Mr Field's book:

https://www.logos.com/product/34172/hebrew-for-the-rest-of-us