Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

While rereading F. I. Andersen, "The Sentence in Biblical Hebrew," 
I came across the following statement:

qum <A> qax 'et-'ishteka, Get up: take your wife! (Ge 19:15)

[Note that I have adapted some of his notation, and the <A> 
indicates apposition.]

Of this passage he says

"The first verb becomes semantically empty, functioning merely as 
a hortatory particle."  (p.56)

I'm interested in what the rest of you think of this statement.  I 
wonder, based in part on Jonah 1:1ff where YHWH tells Jonah to 
"get up, go to Nineveh" whereas Jonah "got up and ran away."  It 
seems to me that QUM there serves a definite rhetorical function 
producing a certain irony.  However, the Genesis passage 
Andersen mentions may be different.  Opinions?

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"Oh, no!  They've all become giant Swiss lederhosen-clad
dancing yodelers!"  "Talk about unpredictable!" - P&B