Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

The qatol in past context, main clauses from Jouon-Muraoka,
(not imperatival qatol, nor, in future contexts, nor aligned with
participle, nor jussive)

Gn 41.43  ונתון
Ex 11.8 והַכבד  (according to niqqud of MT)
Jdg 7.19b ונפוץ
1Sm2.28 ובחר
Is37.39  ונתן  (not same as 2K19.18 ויתנו)
Jer 8.15 וקוה
Hag 1.6 והבא
  ואכול
    ושתו
  ולבוש
Hag 1.9 פנה
Zek 7.5 וספוס
Ecc 8.9 ונתון
Ecc 9.11 וראה  (according to niqqud of MT)
Est 3.13 ונשלוח
Est 9.6 ואבד  (NB: this corrects number typo in previous post, my error,
not Jouon-Muraoka who have it correct.)
Est 9.12 ואבד
Dn 9.5 וסור
Ne 8.8 ושום
Ne 9.8 וכרות
Ne 9.13 ודבר
1Ch5.20 ונעתור
1Ch16.36 והלל
2Ch 7.3 והודות (secondary/irregular form with -ot ending)
2Ch28.19 ומעול
2Chr 31.10 אכול
ושבוע
והותר

The list is not complete. e.g., at least Ecc 4.2 was overlooked, though
cited by Muraoka in a footnote on another point. And I've only extracted
the 'past contexts', qatol as main clause is used in many others,
as mentioned above.
As mentioned in other post, Mishn-Heb, MT, and cognates with
Arabic and Aramaic all argue for probability that a pi``el is the word in
Ecc4.2. (To read ושבח אני  as a *qal 'I am praising[?]' is "possible"
morphologically, but without any confirming support
of attestation anywhere for שבח qal=praise. zero.  Which is
why I argued pi``el as 'probable' ancient vocalization of this verse,)

Muraoka added one El-Amarna example in a footnote Sabat-mi ninu
(‘we [nominative] to-take’)

This week’s parashat ha-shavua` even has a qatol + nominative subject
example:
Lev 6.7  וזאת תורת המנחה
הַקרֵב אֹתָה בני אהרן לפני יהוה את פני המזבר
Context describes a recurring future/subjunctive situation with subject
bne-aharon. "The sons of Aharon [will/should] to-offer it before the Lord..."
[[NB: I offer the translation to help with the context, not to argue that
English or any other European language is necessary for understanding
this.]]
Morphology points to infinitive absolute.
Ancient “Europeans” translated with future plural (LXX), thus the infinitive
structure should not be attributed to “European thought”,
Aramaic translated with future/prefix finite verb , thus the structure
should not be atttributed to “Aramaic corruption”. This exercise could
profitably be repeated in the above list. Of course, a Western European
might want to object because such a structure is not found in Western
European languages, but we trust that you don't want to do that.
(Why you keep accusing readers of "'qatol' as main clause" with
Western European bias, is ironically upside-down. It is time for you
to seriously consider that you may have a Western European bias in
resisting the structure, and perhaps even an 'anti-Masoretic bias'. You
needn't go into an excursus here. I am only asking you to consider
it. Discussing the data is more appropriate.)

I repeat the Qumran example, too, since you couldn’t find the infinitive
main clause
4Q398 fr 14-17 (4QMMT C 25ff)

זכור [את ]דויד שה[ו]א איש חסדים
[ו]אפ ה[ו]א [נ]צל מצרות רבות
ונסלוח לו
ואף אנחנו כתבנו אליך מקצת מעשי התורה
שחשבנו לטוב לך ולעמך

try “w-nisloH lo”.
[a ‘qal’ doesn’t fit the context, a. the vocalization would be with ‘a’ not 
'o',
b. the Qumranians were not in a position to forgive David in the future,
c. they were not in a position to forgive David at all, since ‘God is the
one who forgives’ (Cf. Mt 9.1-8//Mark 2: 1-10//Lk5.17-26 for cultural
background.)]

While the  ש in this short text reminds me more of
Mishnaic Hebrew (despite Jud 5, Gn 6, Jonah etc),
I couldn’t find one structure that was not also a part of attested BH
syntax. So I can't call it "not Biblical Hebrew syntax" though
frequencies will be different.
ve-nisloaH is testimony that Hebrew writers were using a structure
in Hebrew that was not Aramaic, not Greek, but was Biblical Hebrew.
Good for them.

In light of the above, which in itself is only a partial collection of the
evidence, we can reach the conclusion that the Masoretic retention
of the qatol structures is an example of faithfulness to
an ancient tradition. It was not part of Aramaic, it was not part of
Arabic, it was not part of European languages, the Masoretes did not
know that it was attested in ancient Phoenician and El-Amarna, they
just correctly passed on an ancient, relatively infrequent structure.
So you are welcome to repoint two of the examples above Ex 8.11
and Ecc 9.11 where another reading may be argued as equally
probable, but the structure stands, and there is nothing against
accepting the MT in those two examples.

braxot

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth AT gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
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