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  • From: dwashbur AT nyx.net
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] And Elohim called light 'Day' and darkness hecalled night
  • Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:47:13 -0700

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




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