Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryan Rocine" <596547 AT ican.net>]

Dear Peter,

you wrote:

> 
> How about comparing Exodus 26 and 36 (from v.8), which are closely 
> parallel except in tense/aspect? The former has lots of weqatals, also 
> yiqtols, the latter wayyiqtols and qatals.
> 
> Peter Kirk
> 

These passages are representative of the great quantity of the BH prose
corpus by which we can gain considerable momentum for the traditional
vav-conversive theory, i.e., wayyiqtol = qatal and weqatal = yiqtol.  The
problem is that there is still a fairly significant percentage of cases
which do not support the vav-conversive theory, particularly when we
enter... <hear scarey music in the background> "the realm of BH poetry." 
And so the question arises for the study of BH verbal semantics: Shall
quantity of examples win the day, or quality?  

The quantity:  We have this very strong literary dialect at work in BH
prose with strong conventions or constraints.  The distribution of the verb
forms, because of the strong conventions, is quite regular.  Might we
misunderstand the distribution as being *meaning* when in fact it is
*convention*(pragmatics)?  I think, yes.  

Beware is all I say.  I don't mean to throw out what goes on in prose; I
only mean to beware of the fairly rigid conventions exhibited there.  We
have much less linguistic constraint in BH poetry and so a freer
distribution of verb forms, and it may be for this reason that BH poetry is
actually the *best* place to search for the uncancellable meanings of the
BH finite verb forms.  Anyhow, just such a search for the verbal semantics
of BH was carried on by D. Michel in his examination of the psaltry with
interesting results.  Personally, I have to believe that BH poetry *is* BH,
but the vav-conversive theory does not work very well for me there(as well
as in quite a few places in prose).

Does that help?

Shalom,
Bryan


B. M. Rocine
Associate Pastor
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13208

315-437-6744(w)
315-479-8267(h)