Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Could the following be another possibility for 1 Sam 1:12: here we 
have a flashback situation, which would require a pluperfect in 
English etc: "Meanwhile, as she was praying so much to the Lord, Eli 
had been observing her". Normally such a flashback would use w-X 
qatal; but the problem is that this is a one word clause, there is no 
X to be fronted, and so we just find weqatal. But is such a 
construction found elsewhere for "Meanwhile back at the ranch..." type 
situations?

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re: BH: method in discourse: two questions
Author:  spedrson AT juno.com at internet
Date:    28/01/1999 06:34


On Wed, 27 Jan 1999 14:57:46 -0500 "Vincent J. DeCaen" 
<decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca> writes:
>wondering how the discourse crowd would handle two problems.

Hopefully I won't butcher the passage or the discourse concepts too 
badly.  I'm just learning this method myself, but I think I can account 
for both examples.
>
>(1) 1sam1:12,  W:HFYFH K.IY HIR:B.:TFH L:HITP.AL."L ...
>all commentaries, etc, say, read wayhi for wehayah. no less authority 
>than GKC insists on reading it so, and the confusion could be 
>explained
>with the old hebrew script. but... I don't want to mess with the text, 
>especially since there are other instances (6 or 7 in samuel?).
>what do you discourse guys do with this? do you modify the text to fit 
>a
>given theory, or does your theory have to respect the text?

I don't see where this presents any problem at all for the discourse 
approach.  Unless I'm mistaken, this is what Bryan would identify as a 
pivotal/climactic event on the mainline of historical narrative--a 
surrogate mainline, if you will.  The idea is that the weqatal thrust 
into the string of wayyiqtols creates tension from what one might 
normally expect and therefore places emphasis on this point in the 
narrative.  And contextually, I think it's a good fit.  We're now coming 
to the confrontation between Eli and Hannah, and it is at this point that 
he will utter his blessing upon her request.

<snip>