Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

Karl Randolph wrote:
> Yitzhak:
> 
> Judges 5:7 is not a clear example to point to for the Shafel form. I have 
> always read it as (D )$R [verb] phrase which means until the action 
> specified by the verb happens. But in the poetic form, the )$R is shortened 
> to a prefixed $-. The (D )$R is spelled out in over 40 verses in Tanakh.

Hello Karl,

Firstly, my point was that I was looking for some substantiation, not
necessarily conclusive, that this can be read as a Shafel, and what I found
instead was apparently evidence that 1) Shafel was no longer used by the
14th century in Amarna Canaanite, 2) Languages have only either Shafel or
Haphel/Hiphil/Aphel/etc, 3) This form is almost consistently read as an
archaic feminine 2nd person suffixed verb from the root q-w-m with the
participle $.  I was beginning to wonder if I correctly remembered what I read
years ago about Shaqqamti being Shafel and not making things up.  I found 
only that one sentence in Rabin's book to suggest there may be something to 
it, and my research made this sentence seem apparently very unlikely.

So these articles essentially showed that 1) There are some forms of Shafel 
in Amarna Canaanite, 2) Ugaritic has a Shafel but /h/ in the 3rd person 
pronouns, and various other languages apparently have mostly Haphel but 
some Shafel, 3) at least a suggestion by two linguists that this should be 
read as a Shafel.  Furthermore, the same chapter mentions Shamgar, who 
some thought to derive from a Shafel form of the verb m-g-r.  I don't intend 
to 
base any conclusions on this Shafel reading but it can come as secondary 
supporting evidence for a thesis I'm developing.  In the end, the decision of 
Shafel or not boils down to how you interpret the semantic meaning of the 
word, I think, but perhaps a grammatical point in favor of Shafel in 
opposition 
to a participle, is the patah under the $.  All other cases of the $ 
participle 
have a kamatz or seghol, I think.

Secondly, more obvious forms, in my opinion, were Shalhevet and 
Sheshsh:zaphathni (Song of Songs 1:6), where there is a very readable
three consonant root preceding by a non-participle $, and the word clearly
fits a causative of the three consonant root.

Thirdly, I found no examples of Ad with a past tense verb speaking of future
tense, including in poetry.  Generally, it seems to me that Ad Qatalti means
"until I killed" (past tense sentence), and Ad Eqtol means "until I will kill"
(future tense).  I haven't really done an exhaustive attempt to study this 
yet,
though.  For now, I just browsed a concordance to see how it works out.

Finally, a$er is spelled out in poetry, and $ used in prose, if I remember
correctly.  It's not so clear cut.

Yitzhak Sapir