Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Randall:

Thank you for the list. I haven’t finished it yet, but after going through
over half the list, I notice that I have yet to see one clear example of a
stand-alone infinitive used in the place of a finite verb. In other words, I
don’t see evidence for your theory.

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 6:31 AM, Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>

Context! A context that requires an infinitive because it is a secondary
use, the result of the actions listed in 42 and 43a.


> Ex 11.8 והַכבד  (according to niqqud of MT)
>

There is no והַכבד in Exodus 11:8. Do you have this accurate
from Jouon-Muraoka?


> Jdg 7.19b ונפוץ
>

Are you sure that this is not a niphal of פוץ?


> 1Sm2.28 ובחר
>

Context. This is a qal qatal


> Is37.39  ונתן  (not same as 2K19.18 ויתנו)
>

There is no verse 39 in chapter 37.


> Jer 8.15 וקוה
>

Who is the subject of the verb? Starting with the context of verse 14b, I
see it as YHWH, making this a qal qatal.


> Hag 1.6 והבא
>  ואכול
>    ושתו
>  ולבוש
>

These are all secondary to the previous action, hence an infinitive is
grammatically expected.


> Hag 1.9 פנה
>

This is an imperative.


> Zek 7.5 וספוס
>

Secondary verb, takes an infinitive.


> Ecc 8.9 ונתון
>

Secondary use behind a primary verb in the sentence.


> Ecc 9.11 וראה  (according to niqqud of MT)
>

Secondary use behind a primary verb, takes infinitive


> Est 3.13 ונשלוח
>

Context, this is a continuation of verse 12, hence this is a secondary use.


> Est 9.6 ואבד  (NB: this corrects number typo in previous post, my error,
> not Jouon-Muraoka who have it correct.)
>

I thought this was the verse you meant, anyway this is a secondary use
behind a primary verb, hence for grammatical reasons takes an infinitive.

After going through this much of the list and finding not one clear example
to support your theory, do I need to finish the list? Should I expect a
different result from the above?


> 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,)
>

If you really want to insist that Ecc 4:2 is an infinitive, you also need to
take it in its context of verse 1, which would make it a secondary use
behind a primary verb. Even as a participle as I read it, it still is a
continuation of the previous thought.

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

The reason I am very cautious in the use of cognate language evidence, is
because the cognate languages are different languages, very likely to have
grammatical forms and word meanings not found in Biblical Hebrew. By relying
on this data, it is very easy to misunderstand Biblical Hebrew. By “cognate
language” I include Mishnaic Hebrew.

>
> 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.
>

Context points to a secondary use, with the primary verb “to be” understood,
as was common among many languages, or you could say included as part
of וזאת.


> Ancient “Europeans” translated with future plural (LXX), thus the
> infinitive
> structure should not be attributed to “European thought”,
>

As I wrote before, it is not the structure that can be attributed to
European thought, rather the meaning of the structure.


> I repeat the Qumran example, too, since you couldn’t find the infinitive
> main clause


If you need to go to a Qumran example, which is a de facto cognate language,
should this not suggest that that the infinitive main clause does not exist
in Biblical Hebrew?

>
> 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.)]
>

When making my dictionary, I noticed that סלח was used in Tanakh only for
God forgiving man, and in no other contexts. Thus when Jesus claimed to be
able to forgive sins, that was a de facto claim that he is God. If I were in
that audience, I probably would have been one of the scribes raising
questions, “Who does he think he is?” Hence I read that Qumranic example as
a passive referring to past events, not as a first person plural active
referring to present activities of the audience.

>
> 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.
>

It’s not the shin prefix in the passage that made me say that this does not
feel like Biblical Hebrew.


>
> 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.


How ancient? Six centuries?


> It was not part of Aramaic, it was not part of Arabic,


I don’t know those languages, so I’ll have to take your word for it.


> 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.
>

In both of these final verses, one listed above, the infinitive is in
secondary usage, i.e. it is not a stand alone main clause of a sentence. As
secondary verbs, they take the infinitive. As for translation, that’s a
different matter.

>
> braxot
>
> --
> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicalulpan.org
> randallbuth AT gmail.com
> Biblical Language Center
> Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
>

My conclusions from the above:

The stand alone infinitive acting as a finite verb either does not exist, or
it is very rare. So far I have yet to see a single example that I can
confidently point to and say it is an example thereof. It may have been a
structure that existed in cognate languages that was imported to Mishnaic
Hebrew, hence the Masoretes misread Tanakh to include that form, but I have
yet to see it from the text itself.

You claim that that form is not found in Aramaic, I have to take your word
for that, but you claimed that it is found in other cognate languages. If
so, it could just as well be an import into Mishnaic Hebrew from those other
languages.

I don’t have an anti-Masoretic bias, just that their pointings are
irrelevant to a study of Biblical Hebrew. What I oppose is an attitude that
their pointing is accurate in all cases when it clearly is not the case.

Going through the list, what patterns can we see for use of the infinitive?
>From this list it suggests that its use is always as a secondary verb. Its
purpose is to express the consequences of previous verbs, or a follow
through, secondary idea. Further, it appears that this is a required form
for this idea, where in other languages it may have been expressed by other
grammatical forms.

Karl W. Randolph.