A sentence in Judges caught my eye this morning. Normative word order in Hebrew is VSO (Verb, Subject, Object, as in 'Threw Jane the ball'), and deviations from that pattern are often important. In Judges 8, I think it is significant that the Subject comes before the Verb.
Judges 8:23 - "Gideon said to them, 'I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the LORD will rule over you.'"
In Hebrew, this could be re-phrased as 'The LORD, He will rule over you.' This was spoken by Gideon to highlight the LORD as the focus, the new element, so that Gideon clearly denied that he or his family would rule. How ironic that his actions soon proved otherwise! In short order, Gideon ruled the people (8:24-31).
Related post:
Ambiguity of Focus
No comments:
Post a Comment