Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Shai Heijmans" <shaih AT post.tau.ac.il>]

Dear Chris,

You wrote:

> and then twice in Hosea 13:14 'I will be thy plagues, I will be thy
> destruction' the final letter 'heh' is dropped? from the future tense, and
> subsequently a different pronounciation.

This is the apocopated imperfect (=shortned future) of HYH, used mainly to
express a wish. Its paradigm is:

1m.s.: ehi (Ez 11:16, Ps 18:24 etc.)
2m.s.: tehi (Proverbs 3:7, 22:26, Ez 2:8 etc.)
2f.s.: tehi (Nahum 3:11 etc.)
3m.s.: yehi (Gen 1:3, and frequently)
3f.s.: tehi (Gen 13:8, 26:28 etc.)

The same paradigm exists also for the verb XYH (to live). In post-biblical
hebrew a similar pardigm is abundant, mainly because it resembles the
aramiac declention.

As for the specific examples from Hosea you quote: the Greek translation
(Septuaginta) translates here "where". In my opinion, this translation
should be viewd as an example of the (very common) practice of the LXX to
"fix" the text where the obvious translation could be understood to offend
God. This happens a lot, not only in the LXX but also in other jewish
translations, and even on the margins of the masoretic text, by means of
Qri-notes.

A "normal" translation would be forced to give here something like "I (=God)
will be words of death, I will be Hell" which makes sense in this context,
but is theologically unacceptable. So they "fixed" the text. But they didn't
fix it seven sentences earlier, in Hos.13:7, where the exact same word is
translated "I will be" (esomai)! Therefore, I would not be in any hurry to
except this kind of conjecture.

But even if we accept here the "where" translation, there is no doubt an
apocopted imperfect does exist.

Gfsomsel wrote:

> I might add that already in the 1 c. A.D. St. Paul understood it thus
> since in 1 Cor 15.53 he wrote
>
> POU SOU, QANATE, TO NIKOS?
> POU SOU, QANATE, TO KENTRON?

I imagine he was quoting the LXX. All the early Church Fathers relied
heavily on the LXX, which was the only authoritative text of the Church
untill the beginnig of the middle ages. As a matter of fact, researchers use
quotations like the above in scientific editions of the LXX as textual
evidence for it.

Therefore, your quotation is helpful as evidence for the
transmission of the LXX on this verse, but I woldn't draw from it any
further conclusion about the interpretation of the masoretic text (which, as
far as I know, wasn't even in existance as such in the days of St. Paul: all
sorts of versions were moving around, and punctuation was yet to be
invented).

Shai Heijmans