Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

>>
>> Clauses with maHar 'tomorrow' never have 'qatal' or wayyiqtol' as
>> the main verb. Zero out of 52. That is fairly significant statistical
>> evidence that is against the prediction of 'aspect-only' or 'modal-
>> only' theories of the Hebrew verb.
>>
...
> You need to be more careful. For example Numbers 16:16 the main verb
> connected with מחר is היו which is Qatal:
 ויאמר משה אל קרח
 אתה וכל עדתך היו לפני יהוה
 אתה והם ואהרן מחר.
> Or again, in Numbers 33:33 wayiqtol:
 ויסעו מחר הגדגד
ויחנו ביטבתה.
>

thank you, Karl, for providing the quotations so that we can see what you
are, or are not, talking about.

first of all, I found it ironic for you to mention 'being more
careful'. this has
happened before where my correct observations are called 'mistakes'
and sometimes even later the claims of 'mistakes' are referred to as if
'facts'. I trust that that won't happen here.
With "carefulness" on the table I'm being pre-emptive.

Fact: Num 16.16 heyu היו 'be ye' is not the qatal.
the qatal would have been heyiytem 'you were' הייתם.
It is also true that the consonantal form is a homo-morph with hayu 'they 
were'
so I am not surprised to see it misread. But Numbers 16.16 continued
with "... you and they and Aaron tomorrow", so the second person reference
remained included and the imperative is the only natural reading.
The MT is correct in this verse and heyu is not the qatal.

The second fact, that Num 33.33 is not maHar 'tomorrow' you have admitted
and retracted:

> I just looked at the context of Numbers 33:33 and חר הגדגד is a name, not
> what I thought is was just from doing a quick electronic search.

Thank you, we accept that and move on.

This gets us back to ZERO examples of qatal or wayyiqtol being used with
maHar 'tomorrow'.

The other 52 examples of maHar are divided among
yiqtol, weqatal, participle, imperative, and verbless clauses, all
very compatible
with future contexts.

While not 'proof' in things historical, zero our of 52 remains significant.

braxot
Randall Buth
-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
Biblical Language Center
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