Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Matthew Anstey" <manstey AT portal.ca>]

Gday B-Haverim,

I have just finished studying this chapter with Waltke, and it is regarded
by most scholars as a very difficult passage. Waltke himself said that this
is extremely difficult. He suggested that the rather unexpected appearance
of some verb forms is a _rhetorical_ feature, that is, the author uses a
standard narrative structure and then interrupts it with background
information all of a sudden. Then he returns to the storyline. Sort of a "By
the way...," or "I forgot to add that ..." type structure. This is more so
in the first 10 verses if I remember correctly. I also know of two articles
just on this chapter in "Narrative Syntax and the Hebrew Bible," by Joosten
and van der Merwe respectively. I do not have the time (or the skills or
sufficient knowledge of Heb. texts) to contribute another analysis, but I
think both Hatav and Goldfajn's recent works may help.

By the way, at SBL last weekend I heard that Longacre is working on a major
work on syntax of Hebrew poetry, and that Winther-Nielsen is going to
publish a "Role and Reference Grammar." I also have van der Merwe, Naude,
and Kreuze's Reference Grammar (yet to be published). Both of these works
will contribute to the study of BH.

With regards,
Matthew