Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Moon-Ryul Jung" <moon AT saint.soongsil.ac.kr>]

On 04/26/99, ""Lee R. Martin" <lmartin AT vol.com>" wrote:
> Are the wayyiqtols in Gen. 12:4-5 sequential?
> 
> Abram departed (wayyiqtol), as the LORD had spoken unto him;
> and Lot went (wayyiqtol) with him: ...
> And Abram took (wayyiqtol) Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son ...
> 
> and they went forth (wayyiqtol) to go into the land of Canaan;
> so they came (wayyiqtol) to the land of Canaan..
> 
>
Dear Lee:
Though I am not in a position to say anything significant, I would like
to tell you how I am trying to understand this issue of "sequentiality".

Perhaps it may help to repeat here what Niccacci said on his March 8 post 
(
Re 2Ki:7). He quoted examples similar to the above before his conclusion:

[Niccacci]
(1) Gen 37:21 "Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, and 
said,  Let us not take his life."  + 37:22 (Reuben gives the brothers his 
advise) "in order to rescue him out of their hand, to restore him to his 
father."==The rescuing itsel happened after 37:22.
- (2) 2 Sam 5:7 "Nevertheless David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, 
the city of David" + 5:8 "David said on that day,  Whoever would smite the 
Jebusites, let him strike the water channel.."==The taking of Zion happened 
after David's words in 5:8.
- (3) Josh 2:4 "The woman took the two men and hid each one of them 
(separately) and said..." + 2:6 "Now she had brought them up to the roof, 
and hid them with the stalks..."==In 2:4 the hiding of the spies is quickly 
narrated; once the emergency is over, 2:6 resumes the information of 2:4 
and adds the details of the hiding.
Another possible case is Judg 4:18 versus 4:19. I would refer to my 
_Lettura sintattica della prosa ebraico-biblica_ (1991), pages 157 and 
210.


In these cases, apparently the narrator wants to inform the reader from the 
outset of the outcome of the event, and afterwards he narrates the 
details.
Similarly in 2 Kgs 20:7 the narrator first gives the final outcome of the 
event,  then the details.

[Moon] I think the shifting from the statement of final outcome to 
the description of the details is difficult to mark by verb forms.
It should be indicated by other means, e.g. adverbials or context or 
the world knowledge. So, if wayyiqtol is sequential at a given level of
description, then we could well think that wayyiqtol signals 
sequentiality.

[Niccacci]
Further, there is no justification in translating with a pluperfect the 
wayyiqtol's in Josh 2:4, e.g. "But the woman had taken the two men and 
hidden them..." (RSV, similarly JPS). If and when the writer wishes to 
indicate anteriority (i.e. a "recovered" piece of information) he uses not 
wayyiqtol but x-qatal as in Josh 2:6.

[Moon]
I agree. I think that providing a detail to the summarized event is
quite different from providing background information. For example,
consider:

(a) He went to the flower store.
(b) Mary had asked him to buy a bundle of rose.

(b) provides background information for (a), in this case, 
    a sort of reason for  (a). It is more than just providing 
    some antecedent details.

   If we just wanted to provide a detail for the event whose
   summary was presented, we would not use past perfect
   forms. Similarly, while x-qatal can describe antecedent
   situations, the implied logical connection between the x-qatal 
   and the  previous wayyiqtol seems too strong
   for the purpose of providing details to the previous event.

Cheers!

Moon-Ryul Jung
Assistant Professor
Dept of Computer Science
Soongsil University
Seoul, Korea