Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Andy Warren" <andy_warren AT sil.org>]

Bryan, may I pick up a point from your correspondence with Vince?

>My first reservation would be in thinking of HYH as a be-verb.  I don't
>think it is.  I think it means "become,happen" so that hayu kotevim means
>they had become writers.  ...

> I think HYH is closer to Gr ginomai than eimi.

> On the one hand, vayehi hebel ro`eh tso'n has little to do with
> whether Abel is actually doing shepherding during the story time.  It is
> only saying that he came into that occupation.

What do you do with qatal and wayyiqtol forms of HYH such as:

Gen 1:2 'the earth HAD BECOME a formless void'?
Gen 2:25 'they both HAD BECOME naked'?
Exod 24:18 'Moses took forty days and nights to get onto the mountain'?

Forgive the absurd examples, but wouldn't it really be better to see HYH as
a stative verb which becomes ingressive in a punctual context?

All the best

Andy Warren