Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

>> concerning an EXPLICIT, unambiguous example where speech content
>> could not be involved but the action of the verb was moving an explicit
>> something/one that was not the 'content of communication':
>
> You are demanding something from me that you don’t have yourself.

This last line is incorrect.
There are, in fact, many explicit examples where the object is unambiguously
speech content. What we do not have is ONE unambigous example where
something other than speech (like a rock, gold, chariot, horse, food, sword,
person, clothing) is the Object.
In addition, in previous posts you claimed that you had given unambiguous
examples, "I gave you seven", without ever specifying just which example
could qualify.
And now you post another response, without ONE example. What would
you say to such a person?  Politely, of course.

As for explicit examples --

the first example in Genesis, Gen 3:11, is unambiguous, where the object is
'ki `erom atta ...'[who told you] that you are naked'. Why is it unambiguous?
Because ki is a normal word for introducing 'content' in BH and because its
other use as 'causal' cannot fit here. God already knew that they were naked.
The content of communication is explicitly the object of higgid.

this is true for most of the other  30  examples of n.g.d. (verb) + ki.
(all of them fit a speech interpretation, of course, but we are interested
in unambiguous examples that prevent their being twisted into something
else.)
Gen 12:18 lo higgadta ki ishteka hi "[you didn't say] that she was your wife".
You cannot make the verb 'stand before me'. In context the ki can only
refer to the object/content of higgid.

This is also true for the examples where את 'et' introduces the object.
The "et" never introduces a physical object, it is always a 'content of
communication' clause (or an abstract like 'glory' 'you will tell/describe
to my father all of my glory' Gn 45.13).
e.g. the first three of 62 examples in the Bible

Gen 27:42 et dibre Esaw "the words of Esaw" (were told to Ribka)

Gen 42:29 et kol haqorot otam lemor "[and they told him] all the things
that happened to them saying"

Gen 44:24 et dibre adoni "[and we told him] the words of my lord"

So obviously it is explicit and true that le-haggid can introduce the
content of communication. And It is a false statement to claim or
imply that there are no such examples.

> Looking at
> all the examples of the verb in a concordance, it is not explicit that they
> are all hiphils,

No one ever claimed that all examples are unambiguous. That was not
the issue and this response avoided the issue. In fact, if you showed an
explicit example of a 'non-communication-content' object to any binyan
of n.g.d. I would be happy.

> it is not explicit that they all directly refer to
> communications. There are too many ambiguitous examples for you to make
> these claims.

Again, this explicitly avoids the issue.
We DO have examples where
the explicit object is unambiguously the content of communication.
But we have ZERO examples where the object is unambiguously not
the content of communication.
Let me make this clear.
You have presented ZERO examples where the object is explicit or clearly
not the content of communication. ZERO.
And you have so far refused to even admit that you have ZERO examples.
That refusal has lengthened this thread considerably.

> To give an example of ambiguity,

Great. We asked for 'unambiguous', just one out of 369, and you present
an admittedly ambiguous example, and you do so with more mistakes
(see immediately following).

> Deuteronomy 4:13: does it say, “And he
> presented his treaty to you…”

Yes, this could be claimed to be ambiguous: "he told/presented you
'his treaty that he commanded you do the "ten words" and that he
wrote them on two tablets'." Although the natural reading is that
the covenant refers to the content of communication, as specified in
the following clauses, one could argue that a physical verb could
have referred to the stones of the treaty. So this is technically
ambiguous and therefore impossible to use as proof of anything.
BUT we already knew that many examples are capable of being
turned into other things through someone's imagination. That is why
we must start with unambiguous examples. We must first see
what is unambiguous.

>  which would be consistent with a piel use of
> the verb in that context

If this were a pi``el it would have been w.y.n.g.d.
The proposal is a simple mistake.

> and a meaning hinted at by its etymology, where
> “communication” is not the main force of the verb rather the means, an
> assumed secondary thought, by which the presentation was made; or does it
> say “And he communicated his treaty to you…” calling the verb a hiphil in
> spite of the fact that it does not follow the spelling rules for a hiphil

Please learn the following so that this additional mistake is not repeated 
over
and over, since it is the third time it is appearing in this thread.
The spelling rules for a hif`il 3ms-prefix conjugation with a
vav-prefix and without
a suffix, are to DROP the yod. This appears to be well over 90%
consistent, though
I have not counted to see how high is this consistency.
Thou art in error, apparently truly not knowing how to write w+y+hif`il
(singular without object suffix) in BH.
(I trust that this sentence is polite, accurate, and clear enough.)

PS: I just did a count to see more precisely where things stood. Using
an electronic
seach I found approximately 824 vav+hif`il prefix3ms without a suffix,
out of which
only 13 examples had a yod. 811 out of 824 is 98% without yod. Of
those thirteen,
zero examples had a vav-ha-hippuk [waw-consecutive] vocalization. So 768 out
of 768 of 'waw consectutive' vocalization verbs are for 100% without a yod.
I did not realize that the consistency was that high.  You are
free of course, to argue that some of those 768 are not hif`il. But
you cannot argue
that none of them are hif`il or even that most are not hif`il. You are
left, in any
case, with 100% in the past narrative contexts being written written
without yod.

So you are even more in error. 100% of sequential prefix conjugation
hif`il 3ms without
a suffix, 98% if including 'jussive/future' contexts with 'and', not
just 'over 90%'.
You are giving out rules that are in flat contradiction to the facts.
This has already been pointed out in this thread:
"wygd is not supposed to have a yod.
The lack of a yod does NOT argue against its being
a hif`il. That is the normal spelling in BH for a 3ms wayyiqtol:
wayyagged. No yod. Check it out yourself, and preferably before
further responses."
You have failed to adequately check this out,
as detailed immediately above.
Please do not continue to make up a false "rules" for evaluating BH. If
someone does not know something they should question it, investigate
it, and learn. They should not incorrectly reject someone else's correct
observations and descriptions on false charges.

> Therefore, I cannot say what you want me to say, namely, “But I want to
> believe that it can anyway.” where I think the evidence points to more than
> a mere wishing, wanting to believe, in other words, beyond what you want me
> to say.

The whole statement was:

>> It would be nice to hear the integrity of a statement like,
>> "I admit that I do not have one explicit example to show that
>> le-haggid can have a non-communication object. But I
>> want to believe that it can anyway."

And that remains true.
You have presented ZERO unambigous examples of non-communication with a
verb n.g.d., out of 369.
You have again refused to admit this FACT. Refusing to admit the facts makes 
it
very difficult for discussing the meaning of the facts.
And you have implied that you want to go on wishing that it were true.
Fine. You are free to go on wishing.
But the thread has ended with ZERO examples in your support of your
alleged meaning(s). menE, menE, teqEl.

If you want to respond, I think that the 'entrance fee' should be an explicit
example where the content of communication cannot be the object of a
verb n.g.d,
or admitting that you have ZERO unambgious examples.

I believe that this becomes a natural and courteous ending to the thread.

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