Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

Bryan wrote:
> > Bryan, isn't the Gen 18:7 example series 2, in which case
> > (per your hypothesis) Abraham's running to the herd would
> > have to be simultaneous with him giving directions to Sarah?
> 
> Notice I said that the running is simultaneous with Sarah's *baking* not
> Abraham's speaking.  In that the X-qatal follows in a series with vayo'mer,
> which of course it does, we would have to strictly consider the running as
> simultaneous with the speaking.  But writers are not as strict as we
> grand-standing grammarians.   The X-qatal follows *notionally* Sarah's
> implicit obedience to Abraham's instructions.  The X-qatal is simultaneous
> with a notional or understood (i.e., elided) wayyiqtol meaning "then she
> baked": vato'peh or "and then she did as he had commanded":  vata`aseh
> ka'a$er civah 'abraham.  I am not just trying to play grammatical
> slight-of-hand.  Doesn't our world knowledge inform us that Abraham ran
> while Sarah baked?  But where is the baking?  It has elided from the
> surface representation.  I think the narrator is trying to create a sense
> of breathlessness, and the wayyiqtol representing Sarah's baking is
> implicitly clear enough to be dispensable from the representation.  

Is it also possible that Sarah's baking isn't explicitly stated 
because a) the text is focusing on Abraham and the way he 
scrambled around to be a good host, and b) as the head of his 
household within the cultural milieu, Abraham (and the reader) 
would naturally assume that she would do as he said without 
checking to make sure?  As for the first clause of v.7, it looks to 
me as though it's emphasizing "the herd," i.e. "He told her to 
prepare bread, while off to the herd scurried Abraham and got a 
calf..."

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
A Bible that's falling apart means a life that isn't.