Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Paul Zellmer" <zellmer AT digitelone.com>]

Rolf Furuli wrote on Wednesday, July 21, 1999 5:07 PM

> Take a look at 2 Samuel 17:12, which is a verse referring to the
future. At
> the beginning we find a WEQATAL with future (or modal) meaning. Then
comes
> the QATAL NIMCF which has modal (or future) meaning. What is
interesting,
> is that this verb occurs as a QATAL and not as a WEQATAL. Why? Because
of
> the relative particle  before it. If the WE of WEQATAL introduce a new
> semantic element and changes the meaning of a normal QATAL (which
commonly
> is viewed as past) to a modal or future meaning, then we would hardly
> expect that QATAL without this WE would have a modal or future
meaning. But
> this is the case here! And further, look at the words WELO-NOTAR. The
last
> element NOTAR is a QATAL  with future (or modal) meaning. And why does
it
> not occur as a WEQATAL? Because of the negative particle before it;
the WE
> , which we syntactically would expect, is connected with LO and not
with
> NOTAR.  The meaning of both QATALs (NIMCF and NOTAR) is exactly the
same as
> if they were expressed as WEQATALs without preceding particles. There
are a
> lot of such examples in the MT, and they show that the WE is a
syntactic
> element and not a semantic one. When you read your texts, look out for
such
> examples!
>
Uh, excuse me, Rolf, but in the case of NIMCF), I believe the Qal yiqtol
1cp is homographic to the niphal qatal 3ms.  Since the weqatals that
*are* found in this verse are 1cp, it is a definite possibility that we
have a yiqtol in a dependent clause, which would be non-past relative to
the reference time.

I don't have an immediate thought on the WELO-NOTAR except that I *did*
have to pull out my magnifying glass to make sure that it was a pathah
under the tau and not a sere.  The sere would have indicated a qal
participle, which would have been non-past, right?

> Let me add that a similar situation as the one described above also
exists
> for WAYYIQTOL. There are several examples (of which I plan to make a
list)
> where we have a narrative context where WAYYIQTOLs are expected, but
where
> we instead find a YIQTOL because a pronoun or a particle preceeds the
verb.
> This shows in a similar way that the WAYY is not a semantic element.
One
> example is 2 Samuel 17:17. Here we find three WEQATALs with past
meaning
> where WE clearly is syntactical (co-ordinating). Before the last one,
we
> find the verb HLK expressed as a YIQTOL. Why is it not expressed as a
> WAYYIQTOL? Because of the preceding pronoun. The co-ordinating WAW is
> connected with the pronoun, and if the pronoun were absent, we would
> evidently have had  a WAYYIQTOL.  Please look out for examples of this
> kind, also, when you read your texts!
>
Rolf, I can recall numerous postings pointing out that WAYYIQTOL
normally pairs with X-QATAL and WEQATAL pairs with X-YIQTOL.  I believe
you would find that, were the pronoun absent, we would evidently (based
on evidence) find a WEQATAL.  We appear to be in a passage describing
the normal recurrence of events, which is normally marked by a series of
WEQATALs set in an historical passage.  Verse 18 breaks this description
of the "normal" pattern, so we see the writer switch back to the
WAYYIQTOL.

Just my thoughts,

Paul