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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Vav consecutive Gen 1:3
  • Date: Mon, 24 May 2004 15:22:13 -0500

Dear Chris,

I really mean it, I don't go looking for trouble but:

Genesis 1:2 -- Let there be light and there was light.

My grammar book states ( about the perfect + imperfect sequence): "The vav
consecutive is used nowhere else in the whole hebrew verb system except
here". I.E. Vav with patach.

So? YHi (yod heh yod) being a jussive is followed by exactly the same except
with Vav consecutive, and as I understand it one cannot point the vav in
this manner EXCEPT on a vav consecutive. Yet this second verb is also
imperfect.

Now you can all obliterate my reasoning because as is usual I have to be
missing something obvious.

HH: I changed the header since the verse you cite is Gen 1:3. You may be overlooking something. The preceding verb of importance may be "and he said," because "Let there be light" is an object clause for the verb of saying. So "and he said" is the main clause. The thought progression may be: "And he said something, and there was light." So the waw consecutive on "and there was" may follow a similar waw consecutive on "and he said," which may go back to the QATAL verb "was" in Gen 1:2: "darkness was."

Yours,
Harold Holmyard





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