Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

Peter Kirk wrote:
> >I don't recall a single place in Tanakh where niphal is reflexive, 
> >could you please point out examples?
> >
> Perhaps it would be better to say that niphal was originally a 
> simple middle form, one of the slots under which it appears in 
> Dave's list, and the simple passive form was originally filled by 
> the qal passive. For some reason which is unclear, the qal 
> passive became at some time rather rare, except as a participle, 
> and was largely replaced by the niphal. Is that a reasonable 
> reconstruction?

Perhaps compare Mesha )LTH.M with Hebrew NLH.M?

Karl Randolph wrote:
> Are there any sites on the internet to view these varient forms? 
> The only places I have found have been either paper or 
> purchased, both costing many hundreds of $$ that I don't have.

Even if I found an internet site I probably wouldn't trust it too much.
I prefer reference works.  Do you have a University library nearby?

> You have the shafel form based on speculation on one verb, and 
> that one example is disputed, even as early as Ibn Ezra. To have
> a shafel as an alternate for hiphil, you need more than one 
> disputed example, which you don't have.

I don't speculate one verb.  I suggest that it was in a nearby
foreign language such as Amorite or Akkadian, and we know that
Ugaritic and Akkadian both had Shafel forms.  I suggest that
perhaps a few words - a handful or so - were borrowed in this form.
And there are a lot more verbs that are suggested for it.  Rabin
suggests 46 different four letter roots which may be possible 
Shafels (and further others), in various Aramaic and Hebrew
languages including: $YZB (from Akkadian u$ezib = $(ZB = 
rescued), $YCY (from Akkadian u$es.i).  I suggest you look up
the above articles and see all the suggested forms.  

Furthermore, Ibn Ezra didn't dispute anyone.  No one suggested a 
Shafel for $$ZPTNY until modern times.  He just tried to make 
sense of the word that obviously meant "tan" but which in other
places seems to be related to an eye.

> I have no problem with irregular verbs, but to claim that a 
> complete grammatical structure can be built on one disputed 
> example somewhat escapes me.

I have already stated more than once that this is not exactly
what I'm claiming.  Please read carefully.

> I get the impression that modern scholars think that the ancient 
> Hebrews were rather dull people without any originality nor ability
> to use picturesque, indirect speech. Since I believe that the 
> ancients were just as capable of playing with language as any of 
> their modern descendents, I have no problem with "I am 
> darkened (because) which the sun glimpsed me" as a 
> picturesque way of saying that "I've been out in the sun and I am 
> tanned."

There is no need to insinuate that exact and sharp
parallelisms, as opposed to "more picturesque" metaphors implies
that the ancients were dull.  Generally, parallelisms allow you
to join several metaphors in one statement as not only the
statements are paralleled, but also specific grammatical entities
within those statements, and each parallel is a metaphor.
Generally, the metaphor between the statements is the main
one, so that the parallelism is comparable to a regular
(non-parallelism) metaphor.  But sometimes, I find that there
are parallelisms with several metaphors each showing extreme
insight, ingenuity, and wit.  This would not be possible in a
regular metaphor without the literary device of parallelism.  As
such, I many times feel that modern poetic constructs that
usually rely on metaphors but not parallelisms are much less
richer than the biblical poetry with its "dull" parallelisms.

I think even Ibn Ezra has problems with "The sun saw me"
because he uses several verbs in series to suggest "The sun
saw me and ... and revealed me."  Perhaps because "reveal", 
unlike "see", is an action that affects the object, like tanning.

Yitzhak Sapir