Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

. . .
> where “that he be” with the infinitive is secondary
> to the verbal phrase “is intimately connected with”'.

So it appears that by secondary you mean ‘subordinate’ . That is not a
good reading
of what the Hebrew is doing. It does not subordinate (as with asher, ki, im,
lema`an, l-, etc.,) but is coordinate with ‘w-’.

> To give the example of Genesis 41:42–43, pharaoh took a series of actions to
> establish the authority of the new office of grand vizier and the identity 
> of
> the first holder of that office; the final clause of verse 43 uses an
> infinitive to show that that was the purpose of those preceding actions.

So you claim that the wntwn clause is “secondary” and a “purpose” clause!?
BH Hebrew has ways of marking subordinate purpose structures, one of which is
“lamed with an infinitive construct”.

Since w-ntwn is coordinated, people read this as a ‘coordinated main clause’
(meaning ‘not subordinated’) and as referring to an event that happened, not a
potential ‘purpose’. To paraphrase in BH ויתן vayyitten (and he appointed).
That the event was in concert with and connected with previous events has
always been assumed.

. . .
> indicating results, and not a single case of an infinitive standing alone
> in the place of a finite verb.

This is just playing with English semantics. As just mentioned, one may most
consistently and best refer to these w-qatol structures as
‘coordinated’ clauses
(that is not ‘subordinated clauses’) and with the “qatol” as the main 
predicate
of the coordinated clause. You might even agree, when you mesh your English
metalanguage with others. (Not that you need to use anyone’s metalanguage,
just don’t misuse others’ metalanguage.) “In place of a finite verb” means 
that
a coordinated clause with a qatol verb could be paraphrased with a finite verb
and would fit the context. An example was given with ויתן for Gen 41-42-43.
Occasionally, these clauses where qatol is the main verb will not have
an ‘and’ at the beginning. Lev 6.7 was one.

>> (You still haven’t cleaned up your mess with the Qumran text wnslwH.)

> I already answered more than once that my initial reaction was because I
> thought you referenced a different verb in that quote.

Some of us have serious trouble with your claim.
You protested too long, proclaimed the syntax of the whole text as
‘non-biblical’
(without citing anything), and even protested against the specific mention of
w-nslwH, before trying a 'miscommunication' in a later post.
The documentation is in a related thread for readers to make an independent
appraisal of your skills at reading that text.
Even at the end you did not admit that w-nislwH fits a Niph`al
infinitive absolute morphology and that it is not the niph`al suffix verb,
but you tried to explain the 'w' as scribal nonsense.


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