Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Randall:

You miss what I consider the more important issue, and that is a logical
fallacy. According to your argument, that a Qatal or Wayiqtol is not found
as the main verb with the word מחר, therefore Qatal and Wayiqtol have
tense, namely past tense.

The reasons that is a fallacious argument:

Too small a sample. Of the many thousands of times verbs are used in
Tanakh, you focus on only those, less than 100, used only in a very limited
situation, namely in connection with מחר, to make your point.

You didn’t analyze how the verbs are used in the sentences, what are their
contexts? If you subtract out of your already tiny sample all the instances
those contexts indicating imperative, subjunctive, intent which are all
indicated with the Yiqtol verbs, or the secondary clauses in optative
statements that are indicated by Weqatal, you are then left with only such
a small sample as to be meaningless.

Failure to correlate your tiny sample with a larger body of data. When we
take all the Qatals found in Tanakh and analyze their contexts indicating
tense, there are many that indicate future actions. I’ll let Rolf Furuli
give the numbers. That within a small sample of future contexts a Qatal or
Wayiqtol is not found becomes meaningless in the context of all samples.

(A similar situation exists in the use of הלילה meaning “tonight”, that in
the few times it is found in Tanakh, it always follows its verb, therefore
the argument is made that it always follows the verb. But when taken in
context with היום meaning “today” which is used in the same manner, there
are a few cases where היום is used preceding its verb, therefore to be
consistent, one cannot claim that to place הלילה preceding its verb is
incorrect Biblical Hebrew. So your conclusion concerning tense based on an
incomplete sample is not necessarily accurate, and could be just as
fallacious as your claim concerning הלילה.)

Karl W. Randolph.

On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 11:05 AM, Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com> wrote:

> >>
> >> 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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