some progress (Hebrew)
I'm reading torah in a couple weeks, so last week I started looking at the portion I'm doing. I was able to translate most of it without aid. That was a pleasant surprise (though it's also not a hard passage). There were a few verbs I didn't know (like "strip"), for which I do not feel in the least bad.
I noticed an unusual construction in this portion (Chukat, chamishi), and I wonder what it means. (I haven't gone looking for commentaries yet.) Generally in biblical Hebrew double-noun constructions (which probably have a formal grammatical name) are "noun [implied "of"] noun", like "b'nei Yisrael" = "children of Israel". Har Sinai (har = mountain) is where we received torah. The beit t'filah is the house (beit) of prayer (t'filah). And so on. So I was a little surprised to see the phrase "hor ha-har" (= Mount Hor, but literally Hor the mountain) used consistently in this passage. "Har Hor" might sound a little funny, but is it grammatically unsound in some way I don't understand? Is this kind of stylistic variation really all over the place but I'm only now noticing it?
I noticed an unusual construction in this portion (Chukat, chamishi), and I wonder what it means. (I haven't gone looking for commentaries yet.) Generally in biblical Hebrew double-noun constructions (which probably have a formal grammatical name) are "noun [implied "of"] noun", like "b'nei Yisrael" = "children of Israel". Har Sinai (har = mountain) is where we received torah. The beit t'filah is the house (beit) of prayer (t'filah). And so on. So I was a little surprised to see the phrase "hor ha-har" (= Mount Hor, but literally Hor the mountain) used consistently in this passage. "Har Hor" might sound a little funny, but is it grammatically unsound in some way I don't understand? Is this kind of stylistic variation really all over the place but I'm only now noticing it?