Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Phil Sumpter" <philsumpter AT hotmail.com>]

[This has also been posted on the Biblical Studies List, with no response as 
of yet].

I'm interested in how one ought translate the yiqtol verb "yekhoneneha" in Ps 
24:2. Some of the older commentators (Briggs, Kittel, Bäthgen) translate Ps 
24:2 in the present tense:

 for he has founded it upon the seas
 and upon the rivers he establishes it.

Bäthgen even saw cosmological
significance in the distinction ("Das Perf. ysdh; geht
auf die Schöpfung, das Imperf.ykhnnh; auf
die Erhaltung."). Gesenius is close, but he lists yekhoneneha as an example of
the frequentive use of yiqtol in the >past< rather than the present (§107.1a;
giving the odd translation: "was continually being established.")

I'm trying to grasp this from the perspective of Niccacci's fascinating essay
(Eisenbrauns, 2006) which is, as far as I can see, the first attempt to
consistently translate the verbs in poetry along the same lines as in prose. 
It
would appear that for Niccacci, yiqtol never refers to the present. The 
present
tense is always referenced by either a verbless or a participle clause. This
leaves us with yiqtol for either the future or the past. The future 
translation
is well known (e.g. Ps 6:10: "The Lord >has heard< my supplication; the Lord
>will< accept my prayer). When the qatal/yiqtol sequence refers to the past,
"they signal a shift from main-line, punctual information (qatal) to
secondary-line, repeated/habitual/explicatory/descriptive information" 
(yiqtol;
p. 253).

So, in sum, on Niccacci's reading, yekhoneneha

1)cannot be present (because yiqtol never refers to the present);
2)could be future, but that is excluded due to the context (are there formal
indicators?)
3)is probably past, and given the semantics in the Psalm probably either
communicates secondary-line >descriptive< or >explicatory< information. If
>explicatory<, then it wishes to clarify the process by which God founded the
earth on the seas, if >descriptive<, then it wishes to represent the event 
more
"graphically," even to "celebrate" it, giving the event "depth of field" (to
uses Niccacci's terms). The yiqtol has a "relief function."

The best translation for this that I can think of is the gerundive, which
expresses the "dynamicity" of an action, i.e.:

"for he has founded it upon the seas
[indeed] establishing it upon the rivers."

My questions:

1)Does Niccacci's theory hold water?
2)Does the gerund do justice to the form?
3)What's your favourite translation?

P.S. For those who are interested, this has been posted to my blog 
(http://narrativeandontology.blogspot.com/2009/05/translating-qatalyiqtol-sequence-in-ps.html),
 where John Hobbins and Bob MacDonald have shared their thoughts.

Philip Sumpter

http://narrativeandontology.blogspot.com/
>From JimStinehart AT aol.com  Tue May  5 10:15:07 2009
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Dear Yitzhak, George and Karl:

Yitzhak’s substantive comments are extremely helpful.  (The lack of
substantive comments from George and Karl may indicate that I failed, in my 
first
post on this thread, to make clear what my theory of the case is.)

1.  Yitzhak wrote:  “sade3 - written in…Old Aramaic as Qof, and in 
Official
 Aramaic and later as Ayin”.  Thus we see that what had been written as a Q
in Old Aramaic was later written in Official Aramaic as an ayin.  As such,
that “Q” probably was not a true qof/Q to begin with, but was simply
written as Q on the basis of sound.  Yes!  That is a key part of my theory of 
the
case.  As I see it, that means that if we see a Q at the end of an ancient
name in the Bible that has an Aramaic or pre-Aramaic connection, that “Q”
may be an ancient Aramaic ayin, not a true qof/Q.

2.  Amalek’s mother is portrayed in the text as being a person in ancient
times in the Transjordan who was a mere concubine.  As such, instead of
speaking Biblical Hebrew or pre-Hebrew, she might well be expected to speak a
precursor of Aramaic.  The Patriarchal narratives frequently portray mothers,
not fathers, as naming the children.  Amalek’s mother might well be expected
to put an ancient Aramaic ayin at the end of her son’s name [just as the
ancient name )RB(/“Arbe” ends with an ayin].  That ancient Aramaic ayin 
came
out as Q in Old Aramaic, on the basis of sound, though it was not a real
qof/Q.  Amalek’s mother may have meant that Amalek’s birth had been 
“hard work”
 [one possible meaning of (ML], but the later Hebrews took the name of this
illegitimate grandson of Esau as having the pejorative meaning of 
“vexation”
 [another meaning of (ML].

3.  Consider now the name (NQ, which [like the name (MLQ] ends with a Q.
This is an ancient name in secular history, being the first name listed on
the older Egyptian Execration Text from the Middle Bronze Age:  ya-(-n-q.

Moreover, the (NQ people (the Anakim) seem to have an Aramaic connection,
at least in the Bible, because their three tribes have Aramaic names.  
“Three
clans [of the Anakim] are mentioned:  Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai (Judges,
i. 10;  Num. xiii.  22).  These names seem, from their form, to be Aramaic;
but what this signifies is not clear.”  Jewish Encylopedia.com

I also noted in my post that most Biblical Hebrew words ending in Q have a
direct Aramaic equivalent, including:  MXQ;  YRQ;  CDQ;  $WQ;  Z(Q;  DQQ;
DLQ;  and DBQ.  In many of these cases, the final Q seems to be a mere suffix.

4.  Yitzhak wrote:  “In order to show a sound is a suffix in a
quadriliteral word, one has to adduce many similar examples.”  I am afraid 
that “many
similar examples” may not be possible here, since we’re limited to Bronze
Age Aramaic names, of which only a tiny handful are known.  But I consider the
final Q in ya-(-n-q to be a mere suffix.  The root is the Semitic word
meaning “I” or “me”, rather than the root oddly being (as usually 
thought) “
neck”, “necklace”, etc.  Based on (MLQ, (NQ and ya-(-n-q, a final Q is a
typical ending in an ancient Aramaic name, and as such may well be a mere 
suffix.

As I noted in my first post, I see YR + T at item #100 on the mid-15th
century BCE T III list as being based on the Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic word 
YR
+ Q, where the final “Q” is a mere suffix.

Yitzhak and I approach this problem from opposite angles.  Yitzhak knows
formal linguistics, which is wonderful.  I come at this from my close
examination of the city names on the T III list, trying to understand their
underlying meanings and match them to Biblical place names.  Both a final 
ayin and a
final Q on the T III list are highly suspect, I found, and routinely are
optional suffixes that may or may not appear in the Biblical Hebrew equivalent
geographical place names.

5.  If a final Q in a Bronze Age name in the Bible is an ancient Aramaic
ayin, then the name (MLQ in chapter 36 of Genesis makes perfect sense.  That
final “Q” is not a true qof/Q, but rather is a mere suffix.  Just as the
ancient Anakim giant’s name )RB( is prefix + RB + suffix, meaning “Big” 
[not
meaning “Four”], so also the ancient Aramaic name (MLQ is (ML + suffix,
meaning “vexation” or “hard, wearisome work” [rather than having no
discernible meaning].

 6.  It does not advance the analysis for HALOT to state that as to the
name (MLQ/“Amalek”:  “no linguistic explanation possible”.

7.  By contrast, my analysis explains the meaning of the names (MLQ and
(MLQY.  There are no people called (MLQY in secular history, per my analysis,
because that term literally means “vexatious people”, and effectively 
means “
foreign devils”, rather than referring to a specific ethnic group like the
Hurrians, Hittites, Amorites, etc.  (MLQ = (ML [vexation] + ayin [a mere
suffix, here in the form of a “Q”, that merely makes the preceding common 
word
a person’s name, rather than being a part of the underlying root that
determines the meaning of the name].  In Old Aramaic, an archaic Aramaic ayin 
was
written as “Q”.

Meanwhile, the scholarly view of HALOT explains nothing.  The scholarly
view of HALOT has nothing in secular history to support it, and nothing in the
Bible to support it either.

If the name (MLQ had no discernible meaning (the scholarly view of HALOT),
why then would so many Biblical authors outside of the Book of Genesis
portray so many diverse enemies of the Hebrews as being (MLQY?

Everything becomes clear, however, once we recognize that a final “Q” in
an ancient Aramaic name may be an archaic Aramaic ayin that is a mere suffix.
 That final Aramaic “Q” is not part of the word’s root, and does not
determine the word’s meaning.

Jim Stinehart
 Evanston, Illinois

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