Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

First, for ease of reference, is a collection of the ten postings on the
Qumranian texts with an example of an infinitive absolute used in a
past context in a coordinated main clause.
Only the sections dealing with the Qumran text are quoted from the
posts, though the attempt has been made to provide enough context
so that references of posters are clear.
This summary pretty much speaks for itself.

Secondly, a short discussion follows the ten postings.

#1.
19Mar 11:05 EDT
[RB]
In addition, since the above won't cover all of the examples in Dead Sea
Hebrew, I will kindly add one of them for you to see, (although it is not
from the Bible, there is nothing that is not understandable from BH):

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

It's a nice example of their Hebrew including biblical syntax that was
not known in Aramaic. And it doesn't rely on the MT vocalization, either.
Just a main clause infinitive absolute, not Aramaic, good Hebrew.

#2.
20Mar 16:08 EDT
… [immediately quoting the above lines]
[Karl]
I see an imperative. Where’s the infinitive? While the vocabulary is
Biblical, the syntax isn’t. It just feels weird.

#3.
21Mar 5:58EDT
[Yitzhaq]
Even now, Randall gave you an example of unpointed Hebrew and you seem
unable to find the infinitive (nslwx).  This is very suggestive that
you do not have the necessary expertise in reading unpointed Hebrew to be
able to consider all reading possibilities.

#4.
21Mar 9:31EDT
[RB]
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.)]

#5.
21Mar 18:01 EDT
[Karl]
(immediately responding to, and quoting, #3 above]

> [Yitzhaq] I doubt you really have cases where you see the Masoretic pointing
> is wrong.
> Even now, Randall gave you an example of unpointed Hebrew and you seem
> unable to find the infinitive (nslwx).  This is very suggestive that
> you do not have
> the necessary expertise in reading unpointed Hebrew to be able to consider
> all reading possibilities.

Look at your statement a couple of paragraphs above [on a different 
text---RB],
namely that without points that the text is sometimes ambiguous. What was
the complete context of that quote? I read the short quote as an imperative
statement. Morphologically that is a possible reading. And when a statement is
imperative, one expects that the verb contained in that statement to be
imperative as well, even in Biblical Hebrew.

#6.
21Mar 23:34 EDT
[Yitshaq]
No, in this case nslwx is unambiguously infinitive.  There is no way to read 
it
as imperative.

#7.
22Mar 01:12 EDT
[RB]
I repeat the Qumran example, a third time, since you still can'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”.


[Karl]  > I read the short quote as an imperative statement.
> Morphologically that is a possible reading. And when a statement is
> imperative, one expects that the verb contained in that statement to be
> imperative as well, even in Biblical Hebrew.

The sad thing here, is that those who don't know Hebrew but who follow this
list in English might assume that there must be some way for both sides to
be right. 'Street wisdom' says that there are two sides to an argument.
But here there is no argument. w-nslwH cannot be read as an imperative
in the Hebrew language.
"Morphologically, that is a possible reading." is the statement of someone
who doesn't know Hebrew. zxor 'remember' was an imperative, and everything
following was what they were supposed to remember as the writer described
David's life. In that description was wnslwH, an unambiguous infinitive
absolute. To call that an infinitive would be a first-year school boy mistake.
To insist on that,  defies description on list.

#8.
22 Mar 12:14 EDT
[Karl]
>
> 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.

#9.
22 Mar 13:09 EDT
> [Karl]  > I read the short quote as an imperative statement.
> > Morphologically that is a possible reading. And when a statement is
> > imperative, one expects that the verb contained in that statement to be
> > imperative as well, even in Biblical Hebrew.
>
[RB]
> The sad thing here, is that those who don't know Hebrew but who follow this
> list in English might assume that there must be some way for both sides to
> be right. 'Street wisdom' says that there are two sides to an argument.
> But here there is no argument. w-nslwH cannot be read as an imperative
> in the Hebrew language.
>

[Karl]
Why didn’t you clarify that that was the verb you meant? I thought you meant
a different verb. That makes this example a case of miscommunication.

ונסלח לו is found as a secondary verb in context with a primary verb, e.g.
Leviticus 4:20, 26, 31, 5:10, 13, etc.

ונסלוח לו is nowhere found in Tanakh.

That the Qumran document misuses the phrase in a way that it is not found in
Tanakh shows linguistic corruption, possibly ignorance where the writer
tried to make his document sound Biblical, and to do that, lifted a phrase
out of context and pasted it in his document (adding a waw).

#10.
23Mar 00:11 EDT
[Yitzhaq]
Karl,
If I were to discuss the usage of the infinitive in the sentence "When
in the course
of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political
bonds that have connected them with another," and you thought that I
was speaking
about "becomes" or "have connected," is that miscommunication?  No!  It would
have shown that you can't find the infinitive in an English text.

> ונסלוח לו is nowhere found in Tanakh.

Karl, Randall said this is from Qumran, not from the Tanakh.  Still the form 
is
the absolute infinitive of the Niphal found elsewhere in Biblical Hebrew.
Compare Gen 31:30 nikhsoph.  There are additional infinitive forms but this is
one of them.

> That the Qumran document misuses the phrase in a way that it is not found in
> Tanakh shows linguistic corruption,

The Qumran example uses the infinitive in this phrase, but is this really a 
way
not found in the unpointed text of the Bible?  Given that the
infinitive of the Niphal
is spelled nksp in Gen 31:30, the examples you provided in Leviticus could be
read with the infinitive as well.  How do you know that it is not the
infinitive in
those cases? By what evidence do you rule the Qumran speakers, who lived at
a time when Hebrew was still a living spoken language, misuse the
Biblical form?


= = =

Summary discussion

This is a remarkable exchange.

In #2 the respondent cannot find an infinitive absolute in a very
short, 5-line text,
yet he then comments on the five-line text to say that the syntax ‘is
not biblical.’
Remarkable.

#3 and #4 both point out to the respondent that “wnislwH” is the target form,
with #4 trying to pre-empt a further misreading by respondent #2.

In #5, Respondent #2 [Karl] then quotes and responds to #3 and defends [!] his
original claim,  a non-infinitive absolute position!
The arugment appears to be based on a premise that if the first verb in a
context/text is an imperative, the rest of the context may be presumed to be
imperatival !
Firstly, that is a naive claim about human communication, and was dropped
later in the thread,
and secondly, it pointedly ignores “wnslwH”, and apparently is trying to avoid
discussing it.
#3 [Yitzhaq] clearly pointed out that the verb being discussed was “wnslwH”.
#4 had also pointed out that “wnslwH” was the verb in question, 8 hours
before #5’s response. However, since #5 only quotes #3, we can only assume
that one warning had been read. One was enough (#3), since it specifically
labelled and quoted the verb. Yet #5 defends a non-infinitival reading.

Then #6 [Yitszhaq] points out that #5 is just wrong, impossible.

Then #7  [RB, myself] repeats #6, pointing out that #5 was just wrong, and
then comments on the significance of this for evaluating #5’s claims about
Hebrew.

Finally, #8 [Karl] explains that he did not interpret w-nslwH as a qal future
[agreeing with the statements in #4 that that would not be an option], but
still does not admit to an infinitive absolute structure. Instead he refers to
it as “a passive referring to past events.” The semantics are correct, but
the form remains an infinitive absolute structure. After the mistakes of #2
and #5, this appears to be an evasion of responsibility for admitting
previous mistakes.

In #9 [Karl] then claims that the question of “w-nslwH” was a
‘miscommunication’, as if unaware that that was the question. Well, actually
Karl did not ‘overlook’ “wnslwH”, he misinterpreted it. #2 suggests that,
and #5, quoting #3’s explicit naming, proved that. Charitably, if by
‘miscommunication’ he means, ‘yes, I was misreading the Qumran text’,
then we would accept the strangely worded retraction. If, however, he means
that he recognized w-nslwH as an infinitive absolute but didn’t think that any
of us were referring to it, then #2 and #5 would show him to be making
intentionally false and misleading statements.

#8 and #9 further suggest that Karl is trying to avoid discussing w-nslwH and
his first two ‘miscommunications’ about it, by the extraneous information in
the responses. He quotes Lev 4:20, 26, 31, 5:10, 13, which are all irrelevant
since they are all w-QTL in the MT, none are infinitive absolutes. (Karl could
repoint them as wnisloaH, as YitsHaq observes later in #10. But that would
only further undermine Karl’s position.) Karl then accuses the Qumranians of
‘corrupting’ biblical Hebrew in that the Qumran author “lifted a phrase out of
context and pasted it in his document (adding a waw).”  First, the Qumranian
author never claimed that he was quoting or pasting a biblical text. Nothing 
in
the text would have suggested such. But Karl knows better? The author was
writing Hebrew and he wrote an infinitive absolute structure. Karl, of course,
seems unable to read what that author was doing, yet Karl is quick to accuse
him of ‘corruption’ and ‘ignorance’.

#10 [Yitzhaq] pointed out additional considerations that question Karl’s 
claims.

We should all at least acknowledge that the writer at Qumran was able to write
Hebrew with a “w-qatol” structure in a past context ([and]+infinitive
absolute).
With that settled, we can return to the biblical list.


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