Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Trevor & Julie Peterson" <06peterson AT cua.edu>]

John wrote:

> I guess another question (one which if it can be 
> answered I will be shocked) is how do we know that the 
> Maseorites pointed it right.  Is it possible that it should 
> be attested in Hifil?  And how certain is it that HyH and 
> YHWH can not be in hifil form?  The later I presume is a 
> basic question.

The problem is that we can't know, except to look at the likelihood that
this would be a C stem. If no C stem is attested from this root in
Hebrew, and if the Syriac evidence is the only cognate we have (and if
that usage is relatively late), the likelihood that we're dealing with a
C stem here is minimal. If we add to that the Exodus passage, we get the
idea that they thought it was a G stem rather than C. Not that we have
to assume they were right, but it's one more thing to think about. As
far as juding the Masoretes' accuracy in pointing, out best clue is
usually contextual meaning. For instance, if you look at Seow's
discussion of the Qal passive, you'll see an instance where the
Masoretes seem not to have known what form they were dealing with. We
can identify the problem by looking at the distribution of forms.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics