Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Galia Hatav <ghatav AT aall.ufl.edu>]

Dear Bryan,


You wrote:
>
>Wayyiqtol is fairly common in habitual/gnomic (modal)
>material in poetry such as in Pro 31's description of the
>virtuous woman.

        When we analyze the verb forms in BH we must distinguish between
the books attributed to the First Temple period, namely Genesis through
Kings, and the books attributed to the Second Temple period. Ben-Hayim,
Hurvitz and other Hebraists make a solid argument that the temporal systems
of the two periods are very different. So just like we would not illustrate
our findings of BH by examples from the Mishna or the Hebrew translation of
the New Testament (or from Modern Hebrew literature, for that matter),
neither should we use the text from the books attributed to the Second
Temple period. For that reason, we should not be concerned about
counter-examples from those books.  To my knowledge, although the belief is
that King Solomon wrote Proverbs, it is still not attributed to the First
Temple period.  Do you have examples of this sort from the poetry or
prophecy in the books from the First Temple period? I am not saying there
aren't any. Since I have not checked poetry at all, I do not know; I am
just hoping there aren't.

Although I think the register might be
>rather more formal, poetic, I think it would be otherwise
>possible in BH to translate your sentence, "2. (Every
>morning) Mary gets up, takes a shower and goes to work." as
>follows by taking Pro 31 as a template:
>
>2a.  col boker qamah mari vattirxats vattelek la`avod
>

        Again, I don't know about Proverbs, but in Genesis (or any other
book from the First Temple period) I would not expect (2a). (2b) seems more
plausible to me:

        2b. wehaya (midey) (ba)boqer wehitraxaca mari wehalxa...

>Would it be correct to label such cases as evidence that
>wayyiqtol is an r-time builder and not a tense?

        Yes, I would say so. My problem with it, however, is that I see
<wayyiqtol> not only as an R-builder but also as non-modal, and habituals
are modals.

Now if were
>to translate my BH 2a back into English I could do it as
>follows (after I realize the expository nature of the
>passage):
>
>2c.  It is every morning that Mary is an ariser.  And then
>she washes, and then goes to work.

        I don't think (2a) is possible.

Galia
>


>Shalom,
>Bryan
>
>
>B. M. Rocine
>Associate Pastor
>Living Word Church
>6101 Court St. Rd.
>Syracuse, NY 13206
>
>(office) 315.437.6744
>(home) 315.479.8267
>
>
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