hebrew search.

We had this question come up in my Hebrew class at the temple......and I am pretty sure I would find it in scripture....but cant determine how to best do this........

I want the word pair with behama as the lemma......Cattle of Abraham or Cattle of Jacob.......I am really trying to make sure that "cattle" is in the plural

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MJ. Smith

I am really trying to make sure that "cattle" is in the plural

Mind you, I don't know Hebrew< but it appears to me that "cattle" would be singular because it is a collective noun.

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/234286#Comment_234286

Using Logos 4.3 Beta 1 on a Mac, did a Bible Word Study (BWS) for cattle, then clicked on ring to see transliteration. Thought bhmh could be "behama" so right click on hebrew word, clicked Bible Word Study (of hebrew lemma). Collapsed some BWS sections to show textual searches, clicked Hebrew Bible, which opened a lemma morph search of BHS (with Westminster 4.2 Morphology). In Morph Search, dragged Number to group results (on Mac needed to use option key drag). Noticed 14 plural uses and 176 singular uses; none of the plural usages are contextually close to Abraham nor Jacob. For grins, clicked on a plural reference to open ESV, clicked parallel resources to switch to Lexham Hebrew-English Interlinear Bible, then choose to display manuscript and lemma (with transliterations) plus English Literal Translation for screen capture:

Note: apologies to George, personally have lots more Hebrew to learn, not claiming language expertise with interlinear display.

By the way, Gen 34:23 and Gen 36:6 have Jacob near cattle (ESV translated singular form as beasts). The BHS results do not have context near Abraham; found verse Gen 13:2 uses livestock with a different hebrew lemma (also singular for a collective noun).

Keep Smiling [:)]

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/234286#Comment_234286

I am really trying to make sure that "cattle" is in the plural

Mind you, I don't know Hebrew< but it appears to me that "cattle" would be singular because it is a collective noun.

That seems to be a language-specific accidental trait of the word. In other languages it might not have that characteristic (i.e., a word that has a singular/plural form instead might be translated with our word that is a collective noun). I can't speak of Hebrew either, not knowing it very well. But in French, for example, the word for "cattle" is not a collective noun. It is "bovins," a plural for which there is a different singular form: "bovin." Yes, I know that English also has a word "bovine" which comes in a plural form too -- bovines -- and which is more like the French "bovin" than "cattle" is in that regard; but French does not have a different collective word for those beasts like our word "cattle." The only other words for that animal family are vache (English: "cow") and bœuf ("ox," "bull," or "steer"), both of which take separate plural forms.

[EDIT: KS4J posted a more thorough reply while I was composing this one.]

Incidentally, there are actually multiple words in Hebrew that are translated "cattle":

It so happens that the word בקר is singular, not collective (Hebrew makes a distinction). Some of the others are singular.

I'm reminded by all this of my favorite use of cattle in the Bible: Jonah 4:11 (KJV): "And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle."

William

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/234295#Comment_234295

I was just reading these responses and my post and am sorry for the confusion.....at least I am thinking there is some confusion.....I should have just described what we asked in class and I wanted to check scripture on our question.....

Ok. Hebrew singular for cattle, animal....etc is behama.....plural is behamot........and our text has behamat as a "singular" word pair......I typed cattle of Abraham or cattle of Jacob just as an example of word pair.......It does not have to be of abraham or of jacob.....just needs to be "possessive"

We are specifically asking.......what word is used for a plural word pair....is it behamat.....kind of as a collective noun?

This answer will kind of help with other words as well

Textbook states.......son is bain sons baneim........son of ben......sons of .....benay.......4 things........but cattle is 3.....it seems plural word pair is gone.

Jim L. West

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/234297#Comment_234297

William, here's what I did. I did this Morph search in NASB (any morphologically tagged resource would do) lemma:בהמה@N????C. Then I clicked the "analysis" view. Then I sorted the results by State (three results came up that were in "normal" or "absolute" state because the morph tag combined the word with another which was in construct state), and then by number. This found that the word you are looking for is found 15x in singular and 6x in plural. (plus the 3x in normal)

How to do this is found on the Logos wiki. (Sorry, I'm not so good at screen shots and links or I would give you some, I guess I should take the time to learn.)

Anyway, I hope this helps.

Jim W

fgh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/234297#Comment_234297

Why don't you just look it up in a lexicon like CHALOT?

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/234295#Comment_234295

That seems to be a language-specific accidental trait of the word. In other languages it might not have that characteristic

Quite true. You will note from fgh that the Hebrew is generally a collective. Not knowing Hebrew makes me cautious - not sloppy. I had done a reasonableness check before my post and knew it was not an absolute. Because I could not find "cattle of Abraham" or "cattle of Jacob", I did not know if they were exceptions.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/234297#Comment_234297

Textbook states.......son is bain sons baneim........son of ben......sons of .....benay.......4 things........but cattle is 3.....it seems plural word pair is gone.

I have a rule of thumb -when in doubt, at least tentatively believe the textbook.[H]

David Knoll

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/234515#Comment_234515

The word is usually used in the singular form.

It is used in the plural only in poetry (15 times):

Deut 32:24, Isa 30:6, Jer 12:4, Joel 1:20, Joel 2:22, Mic 5:8, Hab 2:17, Ps 8:7, Ps 49:12, Ps 49:20, Ps 50:10, Ps 73:22, Job 12:7, Job 35:11, Job 40:15 (HALOT and Westminster view this as a homonym).

To get this list search Andersen Forbes (AFAT) morphologically :

lemma:בהמה@N??P

Note: WHM views Job 40:15 as a different lemma (בְּהֵמוֹת) in the singular! (see above) so you get 14 results with this search of WHM:

lemma:בְּהֵמָה@n??p

and 1 more using this search:

lemma:בְּהֵמוֹת

In construct state (6 times): Isa 30:6, Joel 1:20, Joel 2:22, Mic 5:8, Ps 8:7, Job 35:11.

To get this list search Andersen Forbes (AFAT) morphologically:

lemma:בהמה@N??P?C

or WHM: lemma:בְּהֵמָה@n??pc

In my opinion in all of these verses the meaning is not "cattle" but "beasts" or "creatures".