Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 19/08/2005 01:08, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:

> ...
>
> I think you are applying too much logic here.  If we read this as participle,
> it would indeed imply that Abraham was already running.  However, if we
> for a moment suppose a "comic strip scenario," ...

Fair enough. I don't want to be over-analytical.

But I realised another reason why I would take this as QATAL rather than 
a participle: in participial clauses the participle is generally 
preceded by an explicit subject, as in v.1, whereas here the subject 
follows the ambiguous form. But I am not sure off hand how general this 
rule is.

> One concordance of mine lists this along with 1 Sam 20:36 as instances of
> QATAL RaC.  But both here and I think also in 1 Sam 20:36 a participle
> meaning is acceptable.  This would leave no instances of QATAL RaC.
> Perhaps there weren't any such instances in Biblical Hebrew usage.  I don't
> think we have a large enough data set to tell.  But I think the presence of
> 7 participle RaC against 2 cases of "maybe participle maybe qatal" RaC
> seem to suggest that the reading in those two cases is participle as well.
>  

Well, there is an unambiguous 2nd person QATAL of this verb at Jer 12:5. 
And your statistics are certainly not high enough to be at all 
significant, especially for a verb like this which might be more 
commonly imperfective than perfective for real world reasons.

> [now continuing from your earlier message]
>  
>
> > The interesting point, however, is that this QATAL is not apparently a past 
> > perfect preceding the previous WAYYIQTOL, as presumably Abraham told 
> > Sarah what to do before running off. 
> >    
>
> Rubinstein wouldn't necessitate that QATAL is past perfect in such a case.
> In some cases Rubinstein holds that QATAL is used simply for past since
> WAYYIQTOL is prevented due to the Biblical author wanting to emphasize
> something in the verse.  In this case it seems clear that the Biblical author
> wanted to emphasize the cattle, as the cattle comes first and we would
> normally expect either WaYYaRaC Abraham or W:Abraham RaC. ...
>  

Agreed. In fact I would suggest a contrastive focus on the cattle, 
contrasted with the flour and bread which were Sarah's concern. 
Contrastive focus in narrative is commonly marked by a fronted element 
before a QATAL verb. And this probable analysis seems to me another 
reason to prefer to understand the verb as QATAL.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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