Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Paul-Jennifer Schaefer" <paul-Jennifer_schaefer AT sil.org>]

I agree with the basic explanation of David Stabnow, but want to address
Dave Washburn's comment below:

Dave Washburn said:
>I'm getting ready to dash out the door so I can only address this one
>cluster at this point, but these are all chiastic.  F. I. Andersen
>(The Sentence in Biblical Hebrew) explains chiasmus as a device for
>tying two things into one, two sides of a coin, so to speak.  Each of
>these illustrates this quite well, and there's no need to
>mainline/offline or anything else.  This is one of my many gripes
>with discourse analysis, but that's another topic...these are simple
>chiasmus.  Nothing more.

Dave,
Actually discourse analysis is not as transparently complicated as you've
presented it.  As chiasmus (or contrast, which would be a better term for
what is happening here) does in inself form a cohesive unit, you could
expect this smaller unit to fit "as is" into the larger narrative-wayyiqtol
chain structure.  It is only unattached X-qatals that would indicate
something being off the mainline.  Or that is how I understand it, at least
(comments?).

Paul Schaefer
paul-jennifer_schaefer AT sil.org