Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 2/23/07, Yitzhak Sapir <wrote:
> On 2/22/07, pporta AT oham.net <pporta AT oham.net> wrote:
> > I read in an electronic search program (BibleWorks) that "LUQ.FX" (2Ki 2:10)
> > is a Qal passive participle, masculine singular absolute.
> > In DBD (page 544) I read it is a Pu'al form.
> > Which do you think is right?
> > If the right one is the second, would it be Pu'al construct Infinitive?
>
> Ancient Hebrew had a form known as "Qal passive" or "G passive".
> In Hebrew, this took the form of qut(t)al and yuqtal.  For example:
> yullad in Gen 4:26, gunnav in Ex 22,6, yuttan in Lev 11:38.  This is
> not a participle but a complete archaic verb form.  The verb LQX is
> not generally used in the Piel, so we may suspect that in this case
> we have a Qal passive, but perhaps revocalized as a Pual.
>
> See also here:
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/2003-September/016279.html
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/2003-September/016280.html

Daniel Sivan reconstructs the G passive suffix conjugation as a "qati:l"
form, based on the EA attestation 3mpl - la-qi-[xu] (EA 287:56).  This is
similar to one form of the passive participle (as in the word nafi:li:m)  and
similar to examples in Biblical Aramaic, pati:xu: in Dan 7:10, qa+i:la:t in
Dan 7:11, and pati:x@:n in Dan 6:11 (@ = qamats).  The prefix
conjugation appears to have been yuqtal, and this is the form in the
Bible (see yuttan above), as well as the form in EA and Arabic.  The
example in 2 Kings 2:10 appears to be a participle form (also probably
laqi:x), and absolute (which would explain its use for the first person)
but was perhaps not recognized because this is one example
of its use still as a verb rather than an adjective (as in naf:li:m).

Had this form survived into Biblical Hebrew, the vocalization would
probably have been laqiax, since the i: was split (in my opinion, for
musical liturgical purposes) and the het influenced the second part of
the split.  This is the furtive patax phenomenon that Uri was talking
about, and it probably took place after the first century CE if we
compare the name Jesus where it is not observed.

Yitzhak Sapir