Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

Firstly, Philip, please sign your posts to B-Hebrew with your real full name.

Secondly, I think you may have misunderstood the Piel. It is not 'emphatic'. 
None of the Hebrew stems (binyanim) are 'emphatic'. Occasionally, the Piel 
(and Pual) might carry an 'intensive' sense if the root of the word normally 
occurs in the Qal stem. But this isn't always the case.

The root דבר is actually 'native' to the Piel stem. In other words, the Qal 
stem is not its native habitat, and as such, there is no real 'intensive' 
element that can be observed in it. It's just a root that occurs in the Piel 
stem. Plain and simple. And it happens to mean 'to speak'.

We have the same kind of phenomenon in English, but most native 
English-speakers are unaware of it. For example, the words 'break' and 
'speak' are in the same 'stem' (cf. how they form the past tense: broke, 
spoke). This is a different stem to, say, that which encompasses the words 
'become', 'behave', 'believe' and 'bestow'. These words are just native to 
particular stems and that's just how it is. It's simply a morphological 
thing. It's the same with Hebrew.

The difference that Pere has picked up in the Greek words λαλεω and λεγω is 
not really the difference in 'emphasis' you were asking about. They are just 
different words with different nuances, much the same as the difference 
between 'say' and 'speak' in English. One is more casual, and the other more 
formal. You can't really point to one as emphatic while the other is not. 
That's simply a product of the semantics, not the verb construction.


GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au