Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>]

Don't forget that Ezekiel, Job, Ecclesiastes and many psalms are also 
commonly dated to after the fall of the first temple. Ezekiel may of 
course be transitional, if written during the exile.

So the answer to Galia's question is that only 14 of these 82 
cohortative WAYYIQTOLs in the books commonly dated to the first temple 
period. The remaining 68 are found in just a small number of books 
generally considered as late. These figures (despite the anomaly of 
Chronicles, but we are not allowed to discuss the evidence for the 
dating of this book) seem to be good evidence for a diachronic change 
in the Hebrew verb system - though of course we come back to the 
possible circularity of assuming the datings of the books.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re: Diachronic Hebrew wayyiqtol (WAW the conjunction)
Author:  <furuli AT online.no> at Internet
Date:    28/02/2000 21:08


Dear Galia,

The WAYYIQTOLs with Cohortative ending occurs in the following books (I 
list the *possible* occurrences in parantheses, and then the percentage of 
the possible occurrences):

Genesis: 2 (42) - 4,7%
Numbers: 1 (3) - 33,3%
Joshua: 1 (14) - 7,1%
Judges: 4 (11)        - 36%
Samuel: 6 (25)        -24%
Ezekiel: 3 (54) - 5,5%
Psalms: 7 (13) -53,8%
Job: 4 (12) - 33,3%
Eccl: 1 (1)        100%
Daniel: 9 (19) - 47,3%
Ezra: 16 (18) - 88,8%
Neh: 28  (55) - 50,9%


53 (64,6%) of the examples occur in Daniel, Ezra and Nehemja. Because of 
the spread of the remaining 29 (35,4%), we cannot conclude that the 
phenomenon of WAYYIQTOL plus Cohortative is a late phenomenon. A fact 
speaking in the same direction, is that 93 (22%) of the possible ocurrences 
consists of the verb )MR- a verb whose WAYYIQTOL only takes Cohortative in 
Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemja (17) with the only other example in Judges 6:10. 
Another fact speaking against the phenomenon as late, is that although 
Chronicles has 7 possibilities, WAYYIQTOL with Cohortative does not occur 
there. Neither of the 16 possibilities in the books of Kings take 
Cohortative.

<snip>

>Dear Rolf,
>
>How many of those WAYYIQTOLS woth cohortative are from the books attributed 
>to the First Temple?  This is a crucial detail since one of the arguments 
>that the aspect system in the Second Temple had collapsed is that WAYYIQTOL 
>may come with cohortative.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Galia

<snip>