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I'm aware that לָה means 'to her'.
And יֶֶשׁ לָָה may mean 'she has' or similar.
Now, what about הַשֶׁמֶשׁ לָה (henceforth 'phrase') ?
I see at least to possibilities (including putative ones):
1.
'the sun is with her' (effectively, 'she has sun')
2.
'the sun be with her'.
My impression is that phrase is deficient, which is to say, grammatically, something is missing.
Or is this a complete sentence even ?
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Shouldn't there be a dagesh inside the Hey for it to act as a preposition with a pronominal ending? לָהּ for her or to her? Without the dagesh it may have a different meaning?
Even the preposition עִמָּהּ with her, has a dagesh in the ending. Interesting question. I'm not familiar enough with all the different ways of Hebrew expression, just some basics. Hopefully Jason will weigh in on the question.
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@קָטָן: I've never heard of a phrase הַשֶּׁ֫מֶשׁ לָהּ. It could be short for הַשֶּׁ֫מֶשׁ שַׁיֶּ֫כֶת לָהּ "the sun belongs to her" or הַשֶּׁ֫מֶשׁ שֶׁלָּהּ "the sun is hers." Where did you hear the phase?
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@Dana: Definitely, it should have a mappiq in all cases in which it is a 3fs suffix (לָהּ, בִּשְׁבִילָהּ, etc. This is the difference between סוּסָה "female horse, mare" and סוּסָהּ "her horse," between אִשָּׁה "woman" and אִישָׁהּ "her husband." The mappiq is part of the suffix, since it represents a consonantal heh.
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I hear, not read, again and again the following in a Hebrew song from Israel, first stanza:
[...]
וְהַשֶׁמֶשׁ לָהּ
קִדְבַשׁ וְחָלָב
[...]
(By the way, since the lyrics are kind of ambiguous, I'm not making any suggestions or overtones.)
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Since the song is heard rather than read the stanza might be a poem. By replacing the Quf, ק with a Kaph, כּ on the Hebrew word you've written as קדבש which I don't think is a word. I could be wrong.
Maybe something along the line as,
And the sun was for her
As honey and milk.
והשמש לה
כדבש וחלב
The כּ before the word for honey, makes a hard K sound and would act as an inseparable preposition with the meaning of 'as' or 'like.'
Just a thought.
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True, כִּדְּבַשׁ is one word, but rather not a term (if simply taken as a term, then one with rather complex meaning, namely 'like honey', and probably contrary to the Hebrew meaning of *the whole line*), and in any case with preclitic כּ meaning 'as, like'.
I was too tired yesterday to promptly correct the mistake.
Why use past tense in the interpretation of והשמש לה, though?
Are there any indications of past tense in the line itself or its context?
By the way, 'her' in לָהּ refers to a fixed instance of אֶרֶץ. The song is essentially a praise and outline of this land.