Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Jack:

What follows is sort of thinking as I write, so please no one take this as
final conclusions.

I just did a quick survey of Biblical books, and found that 15 started with
a waw, all of them at the beginning of narratives. At least three of the
books are explicitly continuations of earlier books, to which you could
probably add three of the books of Torah. Three narrative books do not start
with a waw, two of them because they start at the beginning: Genesis and 1
Chronicles, the third one is Nehemiah. Job stands alone, not part of the
narration of the people of Israel. Of the prophets, only Jonah and Ezekiel
start with a waw, and in both cases, the book starts with a narrative.

If “We simply hop onto a moving narrative.” as George mentions, where did
the narrative start? From the quick survey above, would not the start of the
narrative be at the beginning? Would that not explain why of narrative
books, 1 Chronicles and Genesis do not start with a waw? Joshua, Judges, 1
Samuel, 1 Kings all have indications that they follow another book as an
antecedent, that leaves only five books without a clear antecedent to
follow, i.e. the narrative that we hop onto started or continued in the
previous book. Those three narrative books are Ruth, Esther and Ezra; all
three have national implications, so can be understood as carrying forth the
national narrative.

So, where does this leave us?

My understanding still is that the waw signals that the author considered
the following to be a continuation of what went before, not necessarily a
continuation in a time line, rather sometimes a continuation of a train of
thought to its conclusion. What meaning to be deduced beyond that has more
to do with other factors than the waw itself.

Those are my present considerations, or colloquially said, my 2¢.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 1:20 PM, Jack Kilmon <jkilmon AT historian.net> wrote:

> In October of 2003 this subject was up for discussion and consisted of a
> thread contributed by Ken Penner, Peter Kirk and Dr. Athas.  It may be
> useful to check out the archive.  I don't think George will mind if I copy
> his contribution to that thread below.  Of course debate about the waw
> consecutive will continue.
> *********************************************
> George Athas 10-15-2003:
>
> Two things to mention in this debate.
>
> Firstly, the root HYH is often used as a macro-syntactic marker to give
> structure to a narrative. It does not necessarily imply continuation, but
> rather
> is a recognised 'form' (in the technical sense of the word) for delineating
> the
> beginning of a unit (or sub-unit) within a narrative.
>
> Secondly, the waw-consecutive form is not so much "continuation" as it is
> "narrative momentum". The way I often teach it to students is to use two
> analogies:
>
>
> Waw Consecutive in Narrative Hebrew Narrative
>
> 1. Waw-Consecutive forms are like a green light. When you see them, the
> narrative is moving along. When you encounter Perfect forms, you have a red
> light; you're meant to stop and look around (usually behind you) and take
> in
> the
> 'road conditions' of the narrative; it supplies you with extra info.
>
> 2. Verbs are like camera angles and movements in a movie. A Waw-consecutive
> form
> means the camera is moving along with the characters; the background is
> unimportant. A Perfect form, however, sees the camera stationary, giving
> you
> time to take in some of the background.
>
>
> Most biblical books begin with a "red light" or a "stationary camera" --
> ie,
> not
> a waw-consecutive -- allowing you to get your bearings in the narrative.
> However, Joshua simply gets off to a flying start. There is no direct
> "continuation", though in terms of canonical story, yes it does come after
> the
> Torah. However, the waw-consecutive at the start of Joshua is not a
> deliberate
> "continuation" of the Torah, but rather a narrative that has momentum right
> from
> the start. The vehicle is already moving, so to speak; there is no need to
> start
> the engine or even let it idle for a while. We simply hop onto a moving
> narrative.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> GEORGE ATHAS
> Lecturer of Biblical Languages
> Southern Cross College
> Sydney, Australia
>
> Jack Kilmon
> San Antonio, TX
>
>