[b-hebrew] Translation of a yiqtol verb in Ps 24:2
Phil Sumpter
philsumpter at hotmail.com
Tue May 5 07:09:18 EDT 2009
[This has also been posted on the Biblical Studies List, with no response as of yet].
I'm interested in how one ought translate the yiqtol verb "yekhoneneha" in Ps 24:2. Some of the older commentators (Briggs, Kittel, Bäthgen) translate Ps 24:2 in the present tense:
for he has founded it upon the seas
and upon the rivers he establishes it.
Bäthgen even saw cosmological
significance in the distinction ("Das Perf. ysdh; geht
auf die Schöpfung, das Imperf.ykhnnh; auf
die Erhaltung."). Gesenius is close, but he lists yekhoneneha as an example of
the frequentive use of yiqtol in the >past< rather than the present (§107.1a;
giving the odd translation: "was continually being established.")
I'm trying to grasp this from the perspective of Niccacci's fascinating essay
(Eisenbrauns, 2006) which is, as far as I can see, the first attempt to
consistently translate the verbs in poetry along the same lines as in prose. It
would appear that for Niccacci, yiqtol never refers to the present. The present
tense is always referenced by either a verbless or a participle clause. This
leaves us with yiqtol for either the future or the past. The future translation
is well known (e.g. Ps 6:10: "The Lord >has heard< my supplication; the Lord
>will< accept my prayer). When the qatal/yiqtol sequence refers to the past,
"they signal a shift from main-line, punctual information (qatal) to
secondary-line, repeated/habitual/explicatory/descriptive information" (yiqtol;
p. 253).
So, in sum, on Niccacci's reading, yekhoneneha
1)cannot be present (because yiqtol never refers to the present);
2)could be future, but that is excluded due to the context (are there formal
indicators?)
3)is probably past, and given the semantics in the Psalm probably either
communicates secondary-line >descriptive< or >explicatory< information. If
>explicatory<, then it wishes to clarify the process by which God founded the
earth on the seas, if >descriptive<, then it wishes to represent the event more
"graphically," even to "celebrate" it, giving the event "depth of field" (to
uses Niccacci's terms). The yiqtol has a "relief function."
The best translation for this that I can think of is the gerundive, which
expresses the "dynamicity" of an action, i.e.:
"for he has founded it upon the seas
[indeed] establishing it upon the rivers."
My questions:
1)Does Niccacci's theory hold water?
2)Does the gerund do justice to the form?
3)What's your favourite translation?
P.S. For those who are interested, this has been posted to my blog (http://narrativeandontology.blogspot.com/2009/05/translating-qatalyiqtol-sequence-in-ps.html), where John Hobbins and Bob MacDonald have shared their thoughts.
Philip Sumpter
http://narrativeandontology.blogspot.com/
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