Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Trevor Peterson <06PETERSON AT cua.edu>]

>===== Original Message From nick lunn <nick_lunn AT wycliffe.org> =====
>     Does anyone have any ideas about the unusual clause in Exodus 15:5a?
>     The two Hebrew words simply say: 'The deep(s) covered them'.
>
>     My questions concern:
>
>     1. The YQTL form of the verb, when the adjoining verbal clauses are
>     all QTL.

There seems to have been a certain degree of play with verb forms by Hebrew 
poets. A couple of possibilities to consider--this is an old poem with old 
forms, and here the prefixal form should be understood as a short prefixal 
preterite. Alternatively, some consider that the survival of the prefixal 
preterite in verse led to a poetic convention that allowed prefixal forms to 
function as preterite, even though it was eventually analyzed as no different 
from the imperfect. In other words, if you had asked a Hebrew poet why he 
felt 
free to use a yiqtol form for the past tense, he would have said something 
like, "It works that way in poetry, even if not elsewhere." I get the feeling 
about Ugaritic poetry that very much the same thing is true, but my 
experience 
there is more limited.
>
>     2. The lack of gender agreement between the verb (masc) and its
>     subject (fem).

This has already been addressed, I see.
>
>     3. The fact that the subject precedes its verb, rather than follows
>     it.
>
This is another feature that seems to be more flexible in poetry. I wouldn't 
necessarily expect it to be particularly significant. Some of the difficulty 
in analyzing poetic word order probably comes from the way certain particles 
become optional. It tends to throw off the structure and suggests that the 
resulting arrangements were more freely adjusted to suit the desires of the 
poet.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics