Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

James:
You’re right, it would be rather difficult to make it a conventional reading
group. A further difficulty for me is that I have read these chapters so
often therefore have so internalized their structure that I’d have
difficulty recognizing what may cause problems for others.

However, I took the opportunity while reading chapter 4 to look at verse 7
in light of an idea concerning Biblical Hebrew verb usage that I threw out a
while back:

While it is well recognized that the verbal forms have no temporal force,
unlike most languages, I am questioning even the aspectual understanding. In
particular, I questioned that the yiqtol refers to an imperfective aspect,
while the qatal to a perfective aspect. The idea I threw out is as follows:

Qatal—firm, certain, primary

Yiqtol—optative, subjunctive, cohortative, secondary.

This is just a preliminary idea, may yet prove to be wrong, or needs massive
massaging, but let’s see how it fits this verse:

הלוא אם־תיטיב שׂאת ואם לא תיטיב לפתח חטאת רבץ ואליך תשׁוקתו ואתה תמשׁל־בו׃

TY+YB yiqtol, subjunctive use
%)T imperative
RBC usually pointed as a participle, but could be a qatal. If so, indicates
that error surely is laying at the door, it is not an option.
TM$L yiqtol, optative.

Translation:
“If you do what is pleasing? Bear up. But if you don’t do what is pleasing,
error is lying at the door and its desire is for you, but you can rule it.”

It seems to fit. What do you think?

(I first was drawn to this verse in a novel many years ago.)

Karl W. Randolph.

On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 7:23 AM, James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> Obviously, we're all spread out all over the world so we can't do a
> conventional reading group thing. However, I think if we do this slowly we
> have the opportunity to make discussion archives which can be a useful point
> of reference for students of Hebrew. I was thinking we could do something
> like take a section at a time and discuss the vocabulary of each section
> with reference to forms, idiom, ancient translation traditions, theories
> about how best to translate etc.
>
> What do you think?
>
> James Christian
>
>
>