Biblical Hebrew Forum

[dwashbur AT nyx.net]

I'm a little surprised that nobody has mentioned the obvious chiasmus in this 
verse.  It's 
basically a textbook example.  F. I. Andersen suggested long ago that the 
chiastic device is 
used to show two sides of the same coin, so to speak: he called the light 
"day;" on the flip 
side, he called the darkness "night."  I suspect the difference between him 
and Sailhamer is 
that Andersen posits this force for all types of chiasmus, not just 
wayyiqtol/qatal.

On 21 Sep 2009 at 17:21, Joseph Justiss wrote:

> 
> I would like to weigh in on the syntax of this verse and others like
> it in the Hebrew Bible. John Sailhamer argues that a clause in
> biblical Hebrew that begins with wayyiqtol then shifts to (waw)X
> Qatal where both verbs are of the same verbal root expresses
> contemporaneity between the actions of both clauses.  The sense
> would be something like "And God named the light day while naming
> the darkness night."  You have the same construction in Exodus 1:5,
> something like: "the number was seventy while Joseph was in
> Egypt."
> 
>  
> 
> I believe he has also argued that this clause structure also often
> serves to signal the closing off of sections in the text, thus the
> name "closed Qatal clause".


Dave Washburn

http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur