Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Pal Zellmer wrote:
>
>Rolf Furuli wrote:
>
>>  Think of Aviero's interpretation of Job 3:3 where he said that the process
>> of being born was focussed opon, and the reason was of course that the verb
>> is past and telic. If this view is possible in Job 3:3, and we assume that
>> all wayyiqtols are yiqtols+and, it must also be possible to apply this
>> interpretation to them, and then we get a chain of past events, one after
>> the other, where a small part of the event or state is focussed upon
>
>But the verb in Job 3:3 is *not* wayyiqtol, so grouping it with them while 
>the
>argument of their being simply "the same thing" is a bit premature, isn't it?
>
>> And if that is not done, please stop using the
>> phrase (which in this case must be empty) "But this is poetry" as a part of
>> an explanation. A verb marked for past  tense is just as much past tense in
>> poetry as in prose!
>
>In the cases that I have commented on, and so noted, the verbs have again
>*not* been
>wayyiqtol.  They have instead been yiqtol that have supposed or actual
>past meaning.
>I recall one case that, as part of an acrostic, it appeared that the verb
>would have
>normally been a wayyiqtol, but the waw would have not fit as the initial
>letter.  In
>the Job 3:3 case, I stated in a private posting to you that I would have
>been more
>comfortable if the yiqtol (which, by the way, is in a volitional clause
>wishing
>something had happened to a day that was already past), that that yiqtol
>had been a
>participle, but it isn't.  What I said exactly, "But he didn't, and this
>*is* poetry,
>so other forces may have come into play here."   It only identifies
>another potential
>source for the difference.
>
>I have not seen this phrase used very often in these discussions, and I do
>not feel
>that the uses that I have seen have been in any way stating that your
>questions are
>not appropriate.  But the analysis of the breadth of adjustments that
>poetry can make
>in the hebrew in order to maintain rhythm or vividness or whatever is also
>still very
>much in a state of flux, so let's not dismiss its possibilitiy out of hand.
>
>I agree with you that poetry does basically use the same grammatical
>forms. But, since
>you are focussing on those cases where the actual form is different than
>what you
>expected, you will have a higher incidence of people pointing out possible
>contributing factors influencing the writer.  Why are you trying to ignore
>one of the
>biggest potential influences, i.e., poetry, when it can be seen in every
>language that
>I have dealt with (both indoeuropean and non-indoeuropean) that poetry
>*does* indeed
>influence some changes in forms?
>
>My 2¢ worth,

Dear Paul,

I did not have you or any other person in mind when I asked those who
believe that the meaning of verbs is different in poetry than in prose
either demonstrate it or stop using the argument. It was more that this is
a very widespread argument, which may be either explicitly or implicitly
expressed.  However, I admit that your interpretation of Job 3:3 was more
than I could swallow. I usually find your posts challenging (in the
positive sense of the word), forcing me  rethink my position once more, but
your comments on Job 3.3 was of a completely different quality. Let me
explain.

Consider the following sentence: "Please let the student who arrived five
minutes ago get the book."  That the sentence as a whole is modal, thus
being applied to other worlds than the real one, is evident. But this does
not affect the meaning of the relative clause. The relative clause relates
to the real world, so the student *did* arrive 5 minutes ago.  In a similar
way, Job's birth was a real event on a particular day, and this event was
prior to the deictic point (speech time) in Job 3:3. In many instances are
two or more interpretations possible, but in this case I cannot see any
possibility that the verb can be anything but past.

In the 1920ies Jouon struggled with yiqtols which seemed to contradict his
view of verbs, and his solution was that such forms were
perfective/preterite  (sic). Muraoka revised his grammar in the 1990ies and
he did not find a better solution. I quote Jouon/Muraoka p 369 : "Finally
there are some yiqtols, with no iterative or durative aspect, and thus
having the value of qatal, which would be the expected form." All my three
examples (Job 3.3, Deut 32:10 and Ex 15:5) are referred to by the grammar;
thus they are classical examples of yiqtols with past meaning that do not
fit the traditional grammatical theory.

Alviero's suggestion that it is the process of being born (and similar
processes in the other cases) is possible. I think, however, that we in all
three cases see a grammatical phenomenon which is greatly neglected in
Hebrew studies, namely, the importance the Hebrews put on the state
resulting from an action, the end of which had been passed. To stress the
resultant state, in most cases the Piel stem or the imperfective aspect (or
both) is used, but the lexical meaning or the context may also signal this.
(See Waltke/O'Connor for an excellent discussion of Piel use). A good
example is Joshua 7:6 "Then Joshua rent his clothes, and fell (wayyiqtol)
to the earth upon his face before the ark of the LORD until the evening."
In this case "the fall" took a period of several hours, i.e. the resultant
state is stressed. This is expressed by the wayyiqtol, a form which I
always take as imperfective. Ex 15:5 is a fine example of how the Piel stem
signals that the resultant state is focussed upon, the state of "being
covered" continued. Also consider Job 15:7 where a passive form (Nifal) may
stress the resultant state.

I agree that poetry is different from prose as far as expression is
concerned, bet wee seem to agree that the meaning of verbs are similar. My
principal point, however, is that non-narrative texts has been neglected in
grammatical studies, and the result has been that the grammatical theory
solely based narrative prose does not work well with non-narratives. And
the fault is not ascribed to the theory, but to poetry (non-narrative). A
grammatical theory which is to be trusted must account for *all* the verbs
of the corpus not just those found in narratives.

As an illustration, compare the doublettes of 2 Kings 19:15 and Isaiah
37:15. The first passage uses a wayyiqtol where the other uses an
infinitive. Can we draw the conclusion that wayyiqtol and infinitive
construct have exactly the same semantic meaning because they are parallel
in these verses? Of course not!  But they play the same role in both cases,
and there are so many similarities in meaning that both forms can play the
same role. In narrative texts, we find sentence initial wayyiqtols carrying
the account forwards, and when the author wants to put other elements at
the beginning of a clause, qatals are often used? Does this prove that
wayyiqtol and qatal have exactly the same semantic meaning? Of course not,
but it shows that there are enough common elements in the forms so they can
have the same function?

However, narratives show such a monotonicity as to the use of verb forms
that the conclusion that wayyiqtol and qatal have the same meaning, though
being  philosophically completely unwarranted, can be drawn on the sheer
weight of the thousands of occurrences. That is why I say that before we
draw grammatical conclusions about wayyiqtol and qatal we must consider
*all* the verbs of the Bible. There is no monotonicity in non-narrative
texts! Rather than viewing non-narratives with suspiction, as exceptions or
problem texts, they are highly significant together with narratives to
pinpoint the meaning of Hebrew verbs.

The parallel use of of wayyiqtol and qatal can be explained in one of two 
ways:

(1) Both have the same semantic meaning; they ar both  preterits,
perfective aspects, or both.

(2) They have different meanings, but have enough common traits to fill the
same function. In a tenseless verbal system, a monotone use of verbs
(particularly of waw together with the imperfective aspect to carry the
narrative forwards) may help signal the temporal setting of an account.

Which alternative is correct cannot be gathered from studying narratives
alone, because there is a strong leaning toward confusing function and
meaning when just narratives  are studied - because of the regularity of
the forms. If narratives are the product of the restraining force of
linguistic convention (which I believe) the more normal use of verbs is
seen in non-narrative texts. I therefore suggest that we remove any
prejudice we have against such texts as indicators of verbal meaning and
instead use them (together with narratives) to find which parts of the
verbal system are semantic and which are pragmatic.


Regards
Rolf


Rolf Furuli
Lecturer in Semitic languages
University of Oslo