Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear list-members,


For a couple of weeks I have worked with listing and mapping of the
WEYIQTOLs of the MT, and I have soon finished this work. Today I found two
verses that I will bring to your attention:

Is. 35:1 (NIV)  The desert and the parched land will be glad (YIQTOL); the
wilderness will rejoice  (apoc. WEYIQTOL) and blossom (WEYIQTOL). Like the
crocus,

Is. 35:2 it will burst into bloom (INF. ABS+YIQTOL); it will rejoice
greatly (apoc.WEYIQTOL) and shout for joy (INF.CONSTR). The glory of
Lebanon will be given (QATAL) to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see (YIQTOL) the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God.


The verses are part of a prophecy that continues from v 5 to 10. It seems
to me that in all the verbs in vv 1,2 the reference time comes after the
deictic point, thus the refernce is future. The same is true for all the
verbs in vv 5-10. I see no contextual or syntactical reason why any of the
verbs in vv 1,2 (or 5-10) should express another mood than the other verbs,
but which mood do they express?

The sentence-initial YIQTOL of v 1 and the apocopated WEYIQTOLs of vv 1 and
2 suggest a jussive meaning, but it is very difficult to see any trace of
volition or uncertainty in the verses. The infinitive absolute of v 2
modifies the following YIQTOL and shows *indicative* stress. The same is
true with the following apocopated WEYIQTOL which is strengthened by the
noun with the same root (The WAW between the first YIQTOL and WEYIQTOL of v
2 can be viewed as binding them together to a unity, and an alternative
translation of the first part of v 2 could be: "It shall certainly bloom
and rejoice greatly."). We also note the QATAL with future meaning in v 2.
Thus the context and the infinitive absolute suggest that all verbs are
future indicative, but the position of the first YIQTOL and the apocopation
of the two WEYIQTOLs suggest modality. What do you mean?

One way to solve the problem could have been to say that future meaning is
always included in the category "subjunctive", because it always expresses
something which has not yet happened and is no part of this world. But this
view is problematic because we often find L) in negations with future
reference, and we use to say that L) signals indicative. In vv 5-10 we find
11 YIQTOLs, 1 WEYIQTOL, 1 QATAL, and 5 WEQATALs with the same (future) time
reference and mood as the 3 YIQTOLs,3 WEYIQTOLs, and 1 QATAL in vv 1,2. But
4 of the YIQTOLs in vv 5-10 are negated by L).

What is described above suggests to me two possibilities: (1) Either the
traits that we believe signal "subjunctive" (apocopation,
cohortative,initial position) are ambiguous (i.e. they only sometimes
signal "sublunctive"), or (2) the line of demarcation between indicative
and "subjunctive" is drawn differently in Hebrew than in the Germanic
languages (i.e.a part of Germanic subjunctive is Hebrew Indicative, and/or
a part of Germanic indicative is Hebrew subjunctive). Any comments?




Regards
Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo