Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Studium Biblicum Franciscanum <sbfnet AT netvision.net.il>]

 On  04/19/99 (Reading against the MT: 1 Kings 4:1) Kirk Lowery wrote:


> I have a huge respect for the Massoretes, and I usually do everything I can to
> deal with the text as given. But here is a situation which seems to require
> reading against the MT, even though textually it the passage seems secure:
> 
> 1 Kings 4:1
> 
> WAY:HIY HAM.ELEK: $:LOMOH MELEK: (AL-K.FL-YI&:RF)"L
> 
> The problem comes with the apparaently needless redundancy of MELEK. Here are a
> couple ways of understanding the text as it stands:
> 
> Traditional: "And so it was that King Solomon (was) king over all Israel."
> 
> We could interpret $:LOMOH as an apposition to MELEK: 
>        "And so it was that the king, Solomon, (was) king over all Israel."
> 
> OR
> 
> we could make a change in the vocalization of the second MELEK, from a noun to a
> verb, MFLAK:, and translate this way:
>    "And so it was that King Solomon ruled over all Israel."
> 
> Exegetically, the first two options emphasize (via the function of the verbless
> clause) the identity of Solomon as king. But this identification is already
> handled by the HAM.ELEK: in the subject noun phrase. Why do it twice?
> 
> In third option, the finite verbal clause shifts attention to Solomon's secure
> status as king of the entire nation. This is a fitting introduction to the
> description of his administration, and a nice recapitulation of the previous
> chapter's conclusion: that Solomon is now secure on his throne, having dealt
> with all potential rivals.
> 
> Did I get it right? Is there sufficient justification here to read against the
> massoretic vocalization?

Dear Kirk Lowery,

I would analyze 1Kgs 4:1 as follows:
wayehî = predicate; hammelek $elomoh = subject; melek `al-kol-yiSra'el = complement of the predicate: "Thus King Solomon became king over all Israel."

Being a wayyiqtol, *wayehî* continues the mainline of narrative. It expresses that the fact that king Solomon was recognized king over all of Israel (not of Judah alone, with all the succession problems he had) was a consequence of his wise judgement that is narrated in the preceding verses.
This *wayehî* is not the macrosyntactic marker ("it happened that...") because what follows is not a circumstance, nor a topicalized noun phrase (casus pendens), nor a subordinate complete clause. This *wayehî* is a regular wayyiqtol.
A translation like "Ad so it was that King Solomon (was) king over all Israel" is not correct in my view.

If you read *malak* (qatal) instead of the second *melek*, I would translate: "It happened when King Solomon began to reign over all Israel (protasis), these were his officials... (apodosis)". But I would not encourage such an analysis.

The text makes good sense as it is. The second *melek* is not redundant because it goes together with the personal name, i.e. King Solomon is his official designation.
BTW, "Solomon" is an apposition to the first *melek*. The second *melek* is not an apposition but a complement of the predicate *wayehî*. Actually in many cases verb *hayâ* is incomplete in itself; I would say that it is a verb with incomplete predication like. e.g., "to find" in the phrase "to find someone IN SUCH AND SUCH STATE (or place)"; or like verb "to see" in: "to see someone WALKING ON THE STREET". Similarly here: "to be(come) SUCH AND SUCH."

A nonverbal clause follows in 1Kgs 4:2. It breaks the main narrative line. It is an antecedent construction in the sense that it starts a new paragraph that gives the list of the king's officials.

A sentence with a verbform of *hayâ* is not "verbless" in my view. I think that the usual understanding of verb *hayâ* as "copula" of a nominal clause is inappropriate.
In BH the presence or absence of verb *hayâ* is not optional as the copula is in classical languages. Rather, a wayyiqtol or qatal form of that verb appears when it is necessary to indicate a past time reference, while a yiqtol form is necessary to indicate future reference or volition. Verb *hayâ* is absent when the time reference is the present (probaly because its participle is not used--it appears only once in the Hebrew Bible).
In other word, I consider a sentence with *wayehî* verbal, not nominal, because *hayâ* basically behaves as a regular verb.
Peace and all good.

Alviero Niccacci