Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

Vadim,

It appears to me that you you are mixing up three separate questions  
concerning the nature of VAYIQTAL (I prefer VAYIQTAL to VAYIQTOL  
since the extra O adds a slight complication that I wish to sidestep  
for the moment). They are:

1. Is VAYIQTAL a compound?

2. What are the components of VAYIQTAL and what is their function?

3. What is the English (or for that matter the Eskimosic) translation  
of the components of VAYIQTAL?

Let us sort them out.

It seems that we agree on the point that the VA of VAYIQTAL is indeed  
a "prefix". Hebrew in my humble opinion is not made up of abstract  
"affixes". This VA was once (so I fancy to "fantasize") a distinct  
preposition, that by fluent speech and the invention of writing  
became attached to the body of the next word. So what is this VA? It  
is a typographical variant (tricking the eye you sly writer of  
Hebrew!) of the existence marker BA, which corresponds to the English  
'be'. By the way, the Hebrew AZ corresponds to the English 'is'.

I go even farther to claim that the YI of VAYIQTAL is a second  
"prefix". What is it? It is the personal pronoun HI, English 'he',  
standing for the perpetrator of the act QTL. The letter A is just a  
puff of air. How do I know this? Because it can not be otherwise. The  
letter Y is not a radical and not an auxiliary, so by default it must  
be a personal pronoun. That's all there is to the language; Hebrew  
(as distinct from Russian, etc.) consists of existence markers, that  
add up to roots, and identity markers, or personal pronouns, nothing  
less, nothing more. Hence VAYIQTAL = BA-HI-QTL. Where did I see all  
this? Well, I have been looking at Hebrew long and intently with my  
keenest inner eye.

I repeat what I said before; seeing VAYIQTAL as VA+YIQTAL is an  
optical illusion.

Now to the translation. When we come to translate a Hebrew word into  
a foreign language we usually have at our disposal a pool of  
candidate words from which to chose the substitute.  The American  
Heritage Dictionary defines 'and' as: "Together with or along with;  
further in the same manner; in addition to; as well as. Used to  
connect words, phrases, or clauses that have the same grammatical  
function in a construction". It defines 'then" as: "At that time,  
Next in time, space, or order; immediately afterward; In addition;  
moreover; besides". What is wrong in this as an English substitute  
for BA? Does it make sense that the book of Leviticus should start  
with an 'and'? 'And' to what?!

If not for the word BERESHIT, 'in the beginning', the Torah would  
have started with VAYIBRA.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Mar 21, 2007, at 7:40 AM, Vadim Cherny wrote:

> Isaac,
>
> your reading of wa as "then" is pure fantasy with no factual or  
> etymological basis. "And + verb" construct is common in plenty of  
> languages: Semitic, Greek, Slavic, and never translated "then."  
> Your reading of wayiqtol as "then he qatal" relies on two unproven  
> assumptions with no factual basis: that wa is "then" and that  
> yiqtol somehow becomes qatal. Such proposition is unproven and  
> untenable.
> My translation of wa in wayiqtol is not arbitrary at all but  
> follows exactly the meaning of waw in every other instance. Waw is  
> always "and" (with variations, such as contraposing "and", etc).  
> Waw in wayiqtol is just waw, as we see from Hexapla; wa is the  
> Masoretic rendering. Therefore, it conforms both to the facts and  
> to the Occam's razor to read wayiqtols as "and + yiqtol."
> Before labeling "and he would say" reading of wayomer as  
> "perceptional fallacy", a scholar would have at least asked any  
> Russian speaker about his perception - and get an answer that what  
> is odd to English-speaking mind is completely natural in old  
> Russian. You're pressing Hebrew into the English mould.
>
> Vadim Cherny