Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Hi John, you wrote:

> explicitly stated you can say it's implied!), but my
> approach would be to render it in English with the word
> "then" in front of it and ask if it's a useful concept for
> the BH interpreter.  I personally don't.  Gen 4:25 "Then
> Adam knew his wife again. . ."  

And how about the use, in 4:1,  of the Hebrew root yld and word `od which
back reference use to 4:1?  These are just the kind of lexical signal we
need to begin a new sequence from an earlier referenced point.  

The use of "then" has to
> make you look to the preceding to find out "when," which
> would be quite confusing in these cases, so it seems to me
> wayyiqtol can't have this "then" force, even if it would
> USUALLY be an appropriate translation. 
> 
> Another example I used (not paragraph initial):
> Exod 4:20 
> wayyiqqax    Then Moses took his wife and his sons
> wayyarkivem  then he mounted them on a donkey, 
> wayyashob    then he returned to the land of Egypt. 
>               (perfective > complete action > he arrived
>               in Egypt?)
> wayyiqqax    then Moses took the staff of God in his hand
> 
> 3 out of 4 "thens" make sense but the last I think tells us
> the BH writer needs no special permission to depart from
> chronological sequence when using wayyiqtols  >> the last
> must be simply "Moses also took"

I think we should include under the umbrella of sequence the concept
*logical* sequence.  Include as an option for translation the English words
"so" or "consequently."  "Moses returned to Egypt, so he took the staff of
God in his hand."  I think the choice of the wayyiqtol in the last clause
shown above details that Moses went to Egypt prepared.  

> 
> 
> It did occur, to me, however, that perhaps there is a way
> for us to reach agreement - you described well some reasons
> for why the narrator may depart from the usual sequential
> narration of
> events.  I think such analysis is quite useful as a
> description of the story-telling technique, as long as we
> can divorce it from the idea of an inherently sequential
> meaning of the form.  Is that a possibility?
> 

sure.  And I think it's important to develop a model for understanding the
meanings of the verb forms as a co-exercise with the search for their
functions (e.g. when describing how the verb forms are used in
story-telling technique).

Shalom,
Bryan



B. M. Rocine
Associate Pastor
Living Word Church
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