Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG]

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)¶  "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>