[Avodah] Feminine Plural

[Jay F. Shachter]

> 
> (Why does the Tanchuma say "nichsei avihem", not "avihen"?)
> 

You had to wait for the Tanchuma, to ask this question?  You couldn't
ask it on Numbers 36:6?  You never read Exodus 2:17, where there is an
inconsistency in a single verse?  Clearly the Bible is occasionally
careless about feminine plural forms (although much better than modern
Israelis, who have abandoned them completely).  The Bible is better
with the verbs than with the pronomial suffices, but see, e.g.,
Genesis 21:17 (plus there are weird hybrid forms in Genesis 30:38 and
1 Samuel 6:12).  If that stuff bothers you, I can't help you; it
apparently did not bother our ancestors, who had no problem even with
a verse that was not self-consistent.

                        Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
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