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  • From: peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re[2]: weyiqtols with past meaning
  • Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 17:55:14 -0500



Dear Rolf and Bryan,

Interesting! Even though Bryan didn't spot that this was one of the
few poetic passages in Kings (which proves he didn't look it up!), his
analysis may well be spot on. "The sequence (qatal. wayyiqtol, qatal)
with past meaning in" v.22, not v.24 introduces a speech and so is
likely to be quite different in time and verb form from the speech
itself. As for the unusual qatal and weyiqtol mix in what follows, it
can perhaps be explained as follows (capitals indicate modifications
to RSV):

BACKGROUND: what the speaker has (symbolically) already done:

'With my many chariots I have gone up the heights (qatal) of the
mountains, to the far recesses of Lebanon;

INTENTION of what he will do now he is there:

I (weyiqtol) WILL FELL its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses;
I WILL ENTER (weyiqtol) its farthest retreat, its densest forest.

FURTHER BACKGROUND, a prerequisite to the drinking which follows:

I HAVE dug (qatal) wells

PRESENT ACTIVITY ??

and AM DRINKING (weqatal) foreign waters,

FURTHER INTENTION

and I WILL DRY up (weyiqtol) with the sole of my foot all the streams
of Egypt.'

Incidentally, the King James version is closer to this than RSV in
verse 23: "I am come up (archaic past form!)... and will cut down... I
will enter", but then goes back to the past in verse 24: "I have
digged and drunk... have I dried up". So also English Revised Version,
so it seems that RSV introduced the past only rendering in verse 23.

Yes, Rolf, I am presupposing something like Bryan's or Niccacci's
model here. I cannot disprove your model which may offer an
alternative plausible explanation of this passage. My point is that
this passage, one of the examples you chose to put forward, gives no
reason to prefer your model to the alternatives.

Indeed, one of the problems I have with your model is that I am not
sure that it is falsifiable, at least with the caveats you make. You
come very close to saying "all the verb forms have the same broad
meaning, the choice of which is used is a convention disconnected from
semantics, you can distinguish different pragmatic implications only
by context". Is such a statement falsifiable (given that we have no
native speakers)? How? You suggest falsification by showing "*all*
examples of w+yiqtol in the MT... to be volitive". But how can that be
"shown"? I agree it is not enough to show that they could be volitive,
as I have done with the example above. But it seems to me that you
have a priori ruled out as invalid all methods which you would accept
as falsifying your hypothesis. Logically, either these methods are
invalid and your hypothesis is unfalsifiable, or you are rejecting a
priori potential valid falsifications. Neither is a proper way to
argue for a scientific hypothesis.

Bryan mentioned "a wide divergence among translations of a particular
form in a particular verse". I would suggest that the divergence is
not as great as it should be! This is because translators have in
practice all too often followed earlier translations on debatable
points, e.g. modern minor language translations follow modern major
language translation, which in turn follow older translations in those
languages, which in turn follow Vulgate or LXX. Very few translators
have actually gone back to the original, and felt confident enough of
their findings to go against the tradition in their renderings. One
exception is Ferrar Fenton, whose translation of the whole Bible
(published complete in 1904) was done from the original languages only
(though compared with a collation of other translations as a final
check). Fenton wrote in his preface, "For I discovered, in the Old
Testament, that wherever the Greek translators had blundered in their
rendering of the Hebrew or Chaldee text, every translator in every
language, from the Latin to the German, French, Spanish and Italian,
onward to the English, authorized or unauthorized versions alike, had
one after another repeated the blunders of the Greek, down to a
version I lately added to my collation, made within the last twenty
years."

Peter Kirk



______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: Re: weyiqtols with past meaning
Author: furuli AT online.no at internet
Date: 14/03/1999 20:13


Dear Bryan,
<snip>

>For instance, without even looking up 2 KI 19:23-25, I can guess that the
>wayyiqtol introduces a quotation. The quotation, made of a mix of qatals
>and weyiqtols, expresses the present circumstances by the qatals, and the
>speaker's intentions by the weyiqtols, i.e. "here's what has transpired,
>and here's what I intend." I may be wrong; that's not the point. All I am
>suggesting is that the verb mix, in and of itself, does not say anything
>about the meanings of the forms.

<snip>

2Kings 19:22-24 (RSV)ΒΆ "Whom have you mocked (qatal) and reviled
(weqatal)? Against whom have you raised (qatal) your voice and haughtily
lifted (wayyiqtol) your eyes? Against the Holy One of Israel!
By your messengers you have mocked (qatal) the LORD, and you have said
(wayyiqtol), 'With my many chariots I have gone up the heights (qatal) of
the mountains, to the far recesses of Lebanon; I (weyiqtol) felled its
tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses; I entered (weyiqtol) its farthest
retreat, its densest forest. I dug (qatal) wells and drank (weqatal)
foreign waters, and I dried up (weyiqtol) with the sole of my foot all the
streams of Egypt.'

<snip> The sequence (qatal. wayyiqtol, qatal) with past meaning in v 24
strongly suggests that the two following weyiqtols have past meaning (as
long as nothing in the context shows the opposite). The qatal and weqatal
of v 24 just as strongly suggests that the following weyiqtol is past. We
should also keep in mind that many of the weyiqtols of Isaiah have past
meaning.

<snip>
>
>3. Is it direct speech embedded within narrative? If the MT is correct,
>the translators are wrong. They should have translated the weyiqtols as
>modals, probably volitional forms, "may he, let me, let us, I intend."

<snip> Only if *all* examples of w+yiqtol in the MT could be shown to be
volitive, then I would accept that this was the meaning of the form.

<snip>





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