Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

Peter Kirk wrote:
> The easiest explanation of these words is that they are loans into
> Hebrew from Akkadian etc, i.e. from languages which had a 
> Shafel form. So they are not evidence that Hebrew itself ever had 
> a Shafel form.

I started replying to Peter but added additional comments re: Bill's
and Karl's comments.

The suggestion that Akkadian influence is involved is suggested by
Soggin, and Rabin suggests Amorite influence.  In general, it seems
that the languages may have had a sort of lesser used Shafel form,
which developed out of Akkadian or Amorite influence.  The
examples above are only a few examples.  Rabin investigates a
great many verbs beginning with $, and Soggin investigates on his
own 26 different ones.  In modern Hebrew, we have a great many
quadratic verbs with t as the first letter and related semantically to
other verb forms.  For example: paqad (ordered) / tifqed (behaved),
qi$$er (connected) / tiq$er (communicated), he(ettiq (copied) / 
ti(ateq (transliterated).  Generally, these seem to be basd on the
nouns that have a ta-/ti- prefix: tifqud, tiq$ur, ta(atiq.  But it means
that any one of these nouns, which are relatively frequent can be
converted to a ti- type verb.  Perhaps extensive Akkadian influence 
in the ANE created a similar situation in ancient times.

As regarding the word Ad-Asher, the majority cases of Ad with a verb
just use the verbal noun.  The most clearest example of this
usage is in Gen 27:44-45.  There are fewer cases of Ad-A$er.  The 
only cases of Ad-$ are in Song of Songs, where it appears to the 
exclusion of the other two forms no less than 7 times (sometimes 
the verbal form is not possible because there is no verb, such as 
1:12, but most cases are possible as in 2:7).  This would suggest 
that rather the Song of Songs is the exception, and in Biblical 
Hebrew there is no reason to read Ad-She in any other case. Is 
Judges 5:7 the exception to this?  Maybe.  Maybe not.   In my 
search through the concordance I found examples of Ad- with a 
perfect tense verb in Deut 28:48, although it seems there to be in 
opposition to the previous imperfect tense verb.  This might suggest 
that h.dlw in Judges 5:7 is used poetically (perhaps to parallel the 
previous uses of the same word) but with imperfect semantics.  
Curiously, Song of Songs ends up offering us a very plausible 
reading of Shafel verb usage, but also the cases of Ad-$ with which
to compare.

Regarding $zp vs $zpt, here we do have $zpt in parallel to $h.rh.rt
(black).  And while we could act the lawyer and find all the reasons
not to read it as Shafel of ZPT, the reading here in Song of Songs, 
suggests this is the more likely explanation.  We could claim we 
don't know if ZPT was black, but even in english we have phrases 
like "pitch black" (in par with "sky blue", "blood red", "snow white"). 
And in Isaiah 34:9, the fire and smoke and destruction imagery 
suggests the black color.  And if we are speaking of forcing modern 
interpretations upon ancient words, it's not clear at all that $zp 
means "tan" in the bible.  In fact, Ibn Ezra (Medieval commentator)
interpreted this verb as "the sun saw me" since $zp in other places 
is used in reference to an eye.  But in this verse, it seems perfect, 
coming as an action of the sun to the speaker and in parallel to the 
speaker being black.  So, in the end, I think arguing that there is a 
Shafel form of ZPT which was borrowed from some other language 
is the most plausible explanation in this case.

Furthermore, I don't claim that $aphel was a primary verb form in 
Biblical or Ancient Biblical Hebrew.  I just pointed out various 
evidence towards reading it as a dominant form in several words, 
that could very well have been borrowed.  In fact, $aqqamti could 
have been borrowed as well.  But I should mention Soggin in a
commentary in 1981 (OTL, Judges: A Commentary), specifically
chooses to ignore his previous suggestion of Shafel for this word,
citing the LXX and Vg third person singular as reason.  Also, 
reading, "until I, Deborah, arose," is simply wrong.  There is no way 
that you can equate Deborah with "I" when "I" is not a separate word
but implied in the verb.

Q(R is found in Exodus 25,29, Num 7:13.  

Regarding Ugaritic, Daniel Sivan's Ugaritic book suggests either of 
two readings: $t for h.wy and Gt for $hy.  He apparently favors Gt 
because there are no other examples he finds of $t in Ugaritic.  
Furthermore, the peculiar hi- prefix occurs only in the perfect.  In the
imperfect, we find no intervening h consonant.  This could be 
because the h was assimilated like in other cases of Hiphil and 
Hitpael, or it could be because it was borrowed via the imperfect 
form and the perfect form developed later on artificially.  After 
all, in light of the fact that there is no $t in Ugaritic, it might have 
been borrowed in Ugaritic as well.  As for its meaning, it doesn't 
make any change in meaning at all.

Yitzhak Sapir