Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Title: RE: Hebrew Syntax.

Dear Moon, Peter, and Dave,

In my view, Galia has produced a very fine scientific work. However, it just covers a part of the Hebrew Bible and her interpretations of some of her examples may be open to discussion. The example I used is not an exception.

In my analysis of all the YIQTOLS  of the MT (13.625, I may have missed a few, and a few were textually spurious) I got the following results:

Past 1.022

Pre-past 5

Perfect 173

Present:1.804

gnomic 657

Future 4.841

Modal 5.117

I ascribe modality to "only" 37,6 % of them. Even some YIQTOLs which are sentence initial evidently are indicative. In his article "The Distribution of Short and Long Imperfect Forms in Biblical Hebrew", Le$onenu 1,2, 5760-5761, 2000-2001, Moshe Florentin refers to "150 indicative forms (not cohortative) in a head position /sentence initial/"

The reproduction below of one of the tables of my thesis regarding BW) with past meaning shows that YIQTOL is frequently used in the indicative. There are many more examples of BW)  than those that occur in the table and hundreds of examples of other YIQTOLs with past meaning in the indicative.

a       Genesis 6:4     The Nephilim were (ŠwyDh) in the earth in that days, and also after that, when the sons of God were going (ŠwaøbÎy rRvSa) to the daughters of men and they bore (ŠwdVlÎy×w) sons to them
b       Genesis 27:33   and I ate (lAkOaÎw) of everything before you came in (awøbD;t M®rRfV;b) and I blessed him (ŠwhEkßrDbSaÎw)
c      Genesis 30.38   And the staffs that he had peeled (lEŠxIÚp), he placed (gEŠxÅ¥yÅw) in front of the flock, in the gutters, in the watering troughs, where the flocks came (Π NaøbD;t rRvSa) to drink
d   Genesis 41.50   Before the year of famine came (awøbD;t M®rRfV;b), two sons were born (dA;l¨y) to Joseph
e       Judges 14:18    Before the sun went down (aøbÎy M®rRfV;b) on the seventh day the men of the town said (ŠwrVmaø¥yÅw) to him
f     2 Samuel 15.37  And David's friend Husai came (aøbÎ¥yÅw) into the city; also Absalom came (aøbÎy MølDvVbAa×w) into Jerusalem.

g       1 Kings 3.16    Then two women, prostitutes, came in (hÎnaøbD;t zDa) to the king, and they stood (hÎnˆdOmSoA;tÅw) before him

h       1 Kings 4:28    And the barley and the straw for the horses and for the teams of horses they kept bringing (ŠwaIbÎy vRkrDl×w MyIsŠw;sAl NRbR;tAh×w MyîrOoVÚcAh×w) to the proper place

i       2 Kings 6:32    And Elisha was sitting (bEvOy) in his own house, and the older men were sitting (MyIbVvOy) with him; and he sent (jAlVv–¥yÅw) a man before him. Before the messenger had come in (aøbÎy M®rRfV;b), he himself said (rAmDa) to the older men

j       2 Kings 19.33   By the way that he came (aøbÎy_rRvSa) he will return (bŠwvÎy) (yiqt past and fut)

k       2Kings 20:14    And Isaiah the prophet came in (aøbÎ¥yÅw) to king Hezekiah and said (rRmaø¥yÅw) to him: "What did these men say (ŠwrVmDa) and from where did they come (ŠwaøbÎy N–yAaEmŠw)

l       1 Chronicles 9:28       For it was by number that they were brought in (MŠwayIb×y rDÚpVsImVbŠw) and it was by number tht they were brought out (MŠwayIxwøy)

m       Ezra 10:8       And anyone that did not come (awøbÎy_aøl) in three daysŠ all his goods was put under ban (MårFjÎy) 

n       Nehemiah 13:19  And some of my own attendants I stationed (yI;tˆdAmToRh) at the gates; no one came in (awøbÎy_aøl) on the Sabbath day 
o Esther 2:14     She did not go in (awøbDt_aøl) again to the king unless the king had taken delight (XEpDj_MIa) and she was called (hDaˆrVq–n×w) by name
p        Ezekiel 19:9    And they put (Šwh¨nV;t–¥yÅw) him in a cage by means of hooks, and they brought (ŠwhUaIb×yÅw) him to the king of Babylon. They brought (ŠwhUaIb×y) him into prison, so his voice was no longer heard on the mountains of Israel.
q        Habakkuk 3:16   I heard (yI;tVoAmDv), and my belly trembled (zŊgˆrI;tÅw), my lips quivered (ŠwlSlDx) at the sound, rottenness entered (awøbÎy) into my bones, and I trembled (zΊgˆrRa) within myself.

Regards

Rolf

Rolf Furuli

University of Oslo

> Moon, may I answer you here as one also
> trained originally in science
> and who then worked as an engineer. In most branches of science, if
> a
> hypothesis has a 96% or 97% fit with the
> observed facts (as here), the
> general truth of that hypothesis is considered rather strongly
> indicated. Of course one then needs to look at the remaining
> results.
> They may be spurious or corrupted (cf. here the text may be
> corrupt);
> but one would need to look into whether that is reasonable. Or one
> might
> find that this small residue of results can be accounted for by
> making
> adjustments to the hypothesis. Sometimes it might be necessary to
> leave
> the hypothesis as incomplete and uncertain because a residue of
> results
> has not been accounted for. But I am sure no scientist would reject
> a
> hypothesis completely because of a 3-4% discrepancy.
>
> Peter Kirk
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Moon-Ryul Jung [mailto:moon AT sogang.ac.kr]
> > Sent: 14 April 2002 16:24
> > To: Biblical Hebrew
> > Subject: RE: Hebrew Syntax.
> >
> > Rolf,
> > As a topic related to this exercise, G. Hatav believes that
> > yiqtol and weqatal are "modals". Your example is a
> counterexample
> > to her thesis. In her book, she also noted some non-modal uses
> of
> > yiqtol and said it is difficult to explain them (She thinks some
> are
> > corrupted because some other versions do not use yiqtol in
> those
> > examples.) The non-modal use of yiqtol is  3% [more than
> 30] of the
> 1121
> > yiqtol's in her corpus, which is Genesis through Kings. The
> non-modal
> use
> > of weqatal is 4% of the 573 weqatal's.
> >
> > I have no idea how to deal with this kind or this amount of
> > counterexample. Hatav seems to think it does not invalidate
> her
> > thesis. As a scientist/engineer in training, I wonder how
> such
> > counterexamples do not invalidate her thesis. If there is no
> way
> > to explain away these counterexamples, how is it that they do
> not
> > invalidate the thesis? Is there some agreement going on here
> among
> > the players in the field?
> >
> > Moon
> > Moon R. Jung
> > Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Moon
> > Moon R. Jung
> > Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ---
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