# Lua urechile



## chatkigazouille

Hello all!

I am reading Psalmii 130 and I see the following:

Doamne, ascultă-mi glasul! Să ia aminte urechile Tale la glasul cererilor mele!

1) is there an expression "lua urechea"? In French, "prêter l'oreille" means "to listen carefully" (literally to "lend the ear") so I'm assuming that this is the same deal.

2) Să + imperative - is this a thing? If it were just a regular conjunctiv I would expect să iei... Is this form used because the psalmist is addressing God directly with his strong wish? ("may you listen to our supplications!")

Thank you all!


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## irinet

'Să ia aminte urechile tale' - Present Conjunctive, 3rd person.
"Urechile" - the subject of the Present Conjunctive.

God's ears should listen to...
It's not a special expression in Romanian regarding  the ears. It's with 'a lua aminte' - pay attention/listen very carefully, instead.


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## chatkigazouille

Thank you @irinet


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## metaphrastes

For what is worth, the Hebrew text follow a scheme of verb (hâyâh, _to be, to become_) + noun ([thine] ears) + adjective (attentive). The King James version follows this same scheme, adapting just the word order: _"let thine ears be attentive..."._

For some reason, this wording does not seem to be idiomatic in Romanian. The Romanian Synodal Bible reads so: _"Fie urechile Tale cu luare-aminte la glasul rugăciunii mele"_. Instead of a bare adjective, it is used a locution with adjective power - _cu luare-aminte, with attention, with attentiveness. _The translation you quoted gives it another spin, using a verbal locution or idiomatic expression as _lua aminte.
_
Theoretically, it would be possible to use the adjectives _atent _or _grijuliu_, but I cannot remember seeing them either in Biblical or Liturgical Romanian language - they are not idiomatic.

It is interesting, because the more idiomatic expressions, in Romanian - _a lua aminte, cu luare-aminte _- do sound absolutely Biblical, being that the Hebrew language has a lot of these concrete images, such as _incline thine ear, _in Psalm 45:10, in Romanian, _Ascultă fiică şi vezi şi pleacă urechea ta..., _having the same meaning of hearing attentively. It appears many times too in the Psalms and Proverbs, as well in Job, Isaiah or Daniel. And probably a good translation to this expression, in French, would be _"prêter l'oreille"_, which sounds very Biblical, too.


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## chatkigazouille

@metaphrastes  That's very interesting. The French Bibles (LSG, Crampon, AELF) sound closer to the Hebrew translation actually (que Tes oreilles soient attentives ~ may Your ears be attentive). But anyways.

@irinet "a pleca urechea" - can this mean "to listen carefully" as well?

Thank you all. I'm learning so much from this, from you all and from the Bible (thanks be to God!  )


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## irinet

1.Yes, it could mean 'listen carefully'.

2.But also, it means 'to listen to gossip'.


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## farscape

irinet said:


> 1.Yes, it could mean 'listen carefully'.
> 
> 2.But also, it _could_ mean 'to listen to gossip'.



That is correct - it's also an archaic form unlikely to hear it used in spoken language today.


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## irinet

farscape said:


> That is correct - it's also an archaic form unlikely to hear it used in spoken language today.




The second variant is not archaic, being still in use, but it's informal.


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## farscape

Honestly, when was the last time you used it or witnessed it being used in common language?

I find it hard to believe that you speak like this: "Îmi plec urechea la vorbele voastre " when talking to your friends and mean "I listen to you attentively" or "I believe your gossip"


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## irinet

Believe it or not, but I really use it in the negative form: _Nu mai pleca tu urechea la tot ce se zice/la toate zvonurile.
_


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