Biblical Hebrew Forum

["B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com>]

Hi Andy, you wrote:

> 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

On Gen 1:2, What's the problem?  Doesn't fit your cosmology?

Gen 2:25, I don't see how ingressive works.  Here's ingressive:  "...and
they started being naked."  Rather, I prefer to read this wayyiqtol as
making concrete for us readers what we may have guessed from the creation
account, that the Lord made them naked, something like, "and they came into
being naked" or "they came about naked" or "they materialized naked."

Exo 24:18  I don't know how your above translation came from anything I
said.  Moses was a "happenin'" on the mountain for forty days and nights.  I
say this only half-jokingly.  We sometimes say around here that someone is a
"happenin' guy" if he's very active.     How does this tranlsation strike
you: "Moses stayed..." or "Moses continued..."  I think we can try to
preserve HYH's meaning of *happen* or *become* or *come into being* in
translation in a great number of ways.  An English verb of movement is often
useful.

I can add another.  2 Sam 12:30 speaking of a crown: vattehiy `al ro'sh
david   "...it wound up on David's head."

Or 2 Sam 13:20.   ha'aminon 'axik hayah `imak  is a more suitable
construction for the loaded question than ha'aminon 'axik `imak (without
hayah) would be.  "Did Amnon your brother take place with you?"

Shalom,
Bryan

B. M. Rocine
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13206

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