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  • From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • To: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Use and Misuse of Waw in Verb Tenses
  • Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 01:08:05 -0500

Yitzak:

So far all the books you cited are post-exilic ones.

Will the pattern of such “slips” also be found in pre-exilic books, or is
this an indication that knowledge of Hebrew language was rapidly fading even
during the exile? It will be interesting to know.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>

> Hello all,
>
> To my understanding, BIblical Hebrew's conjuction (waw) connotes when
> attached to a verb a conjunction, a time order, and time reversal.
> That is, a sentence that begins with "waw-verb ..." implies that the
> action happened after what had been told in the previous verses had
> completed, and also that the verb, if in future, refers to the past,
> and if in past, it refers to the future. In various places in late
> books, we find that this waw is used without this time reversal
> property. For example, in the end of Esther 9:20-, we have:
> wayyiktob, wayyi$lax, w:qibbel, w:hippil, w:talu. Now in this
> particular portion of verses we have what seems to be past tense but
> the grammatical rules of analyzing this past tense shift in the
> middle. This could be explained as part of the heavy Aramaic
> influence on the book of Esther, coupled with an attempt to write in
> ancient Hebrew when Hebrew was already losing this construct.
>
> However, I have noticed that "slips" like this happen in places where
> that is less to be expected. For examples, I Kings 4:7 "w:kilklu" is
> apparently a future verb, although it's context is decidedly
> historical and past tense. Particularly, this verse happens in a
> section which appears to be in debate as to whether it is "Solomonic"
> or not. In any case, it seems that this verse cannot be dated to the
> exilic period, so it seems odd to find a future tense here when one
> would expect past tense. Even arguing that a "y" has fallen by
> accident from the text, would seem odd, since by the time it could
> have happened, there must have been many copies of Kings and so the
> odds that this accidental slip would survive are low. Oddly, no one
> thus far in the various few articles I have read on this has paid any
> attention to this slip. Perhaps I am misreading.
>
> I was wondering whether there was any systematic study of "slips" like
> this and of the use and misuse of the waw- with verbs in the Bible.
> Or, if not that, a "concordance" of grammatical structures whereby one
> could look up how common is the use of waw to denote past tense verbs
> and how often it is used for future tense verbs. This could give some
> hint as to how uncommon the above verb is in Kings as opposed to
> Esther. Any help would be welcome :-)
--
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