Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ken Penner <kpenner AT stfx.ca>]

I reviewed the 2008 volume containing the Qimron essay, available at http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/jhs/article/view/11367/8699

I summarized his contribution as follows:

Elisha Qimron contributes an essay entitled “The Type וָאֶבְנֶה in the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” addressing the question why the forms of the conversive imperfect differ in length between the first person and the second/third persons. Qimron notes the prevalence of apocopated forms in the Pentateuch, but of non-apocopated forms in the early historical books and the late biblical books of the Bible (Isaiah to Job exhibit no preference for one form over the other). The Dead Sea Scrolls and Samaritan Pentateuch use only the non-apocopated forms, confirming Bergsträsser's suggestion that the distinction is by analogy to the modal system. Qimron argues that the forms in Qumran Hebrew represent not an imitation of Biblical Hebrew but rather the last stage in this analogical development. Because of the similarity with Samaritan Hebrew, Qimron insists that these forms are not artificial but were a progressing phenomenon.

 

From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Ken Penner
Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2013 9:40 AM
To: b-hebrew
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] wayyiqtol

 

Regarding wyqtwl forms in unpointed texts, the following excerpts are from various parts of my thesis:

In pointed texts, consecutive waws (as read by the Massoretes) can be identified by their pointing: the vowel a and doubling of the next consonant. In addition, certain verb forms are apocopated (like the jussive) when the waw is consecutive: hollow verbs (וַיָּקֹם vs. וְיָקוּם), final ה verbs (וַיִּבֶן vs. וְיִבְנֶה), the Hiphil stem (וַיּקְטֵל vs. וְיַקְטִיל). However, in most cases, there is no difference between two forms. For example, even in pointed Biblical Hebrew, forms commonly identified as waw-consecutive suffix conjugation (called wəqātaltí because of the commonly observed shift of accent to the final syllable) are often identical to forms of the waw-conjunctive suffix conjugation. The problem is exacerbated in unpointed Hebrew, where wayyiqtōl and wəyiqtōl forms both are spelled wyqtwl. Some studies have even argued that the short prefix forms are triggered by the waw rather than because of a distinction in meaning (E. Qimron, “Consecutive and Conjunctive Imperfect”, JQR 77[1986]: 151; see also Qimron, Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls §310.129, p. 46). Of course, it bears repeating that Biblical Hebrew was also originally unpointed, and that the vowel points we do have may not reflect the original pronunciation. In fact, as Z. Ben-Hayyim notes, in the Samaritan tradition, “as in the tradition of the second column of Origen’s Hexapla, there was no morphological distinction between what we know as waw consecutive and waw conjunctive. Neither of them caused gemination of the following consonant in the imperfect, just as they did not cause gemination in the perfect” (A Grammar of Samaritan Hebrew [Jerusalem: Magnes, 2000], 171).

                                                                         

The question of the function of the waw-prefixed forms may be the most interesting in the study of Hebrew verb form semantics. Yet here we run into a complication that may be unique to Qumran writings: because these are unpointed texts, we cannot look to the vowel under the waw to determine whether the waw is conjunctive (weyiqtol) or consecutive (wayyiqtol). Nor can we look to shifts in the stress pattern to determine whether a weqatal form is conjunctive or consecutive. Even the long cohortative forms and short consecutive forms we are used to seeing in Biblical Hebrew (in ל״ה, Hiphil, and hollow verbs) do not distinguish consecutives from conjunctives in Qumran Hebrew. There has in fact been some discussion in scholarly literature as to whether the waw-consecutive had dropped out of use at this time. (See, for example, M. Smith, Origins, 35–36; Burrows, “Orthography,” 209; Rubinstein, “Singularities,” 186; Kutscher, Language and Linguistic, 351; “Hebrew Language, the Dead Sea Scrolls”; DeVries, “Consecutive”; Abegg, “Hebrew,” 338.)

 

Abegg (1998, 337) noted the difficulty of distinguishing between a “conjunctive imperfect (weyiqtol)” and a “waw consecutive (wayyiqtol)” in fragmentary unpointed texts, implying that if the text were more complete, there would be more contextual information for distinguishing these two uses.

 

The question of the use by the Qumran authors of the wayyiqtol form is complicated by the fact that the (consecutive) wayyiqtol and the (conjunctive) weyiqtol are not normally distinguished orthographically in unpointed texts. In the Masoretic Text, only in ל״ה verbs, hollow verbs (ע״ו and ע״י), and the Hiphil binyan is a distinction between the two forms visible in the consonantal text: ל״ה waw-consecutives have no final ה; hollow ע״ו and ע״י waw-consecutives are missing the ו or י, and Hiphil waw-consecutives are missing the characteristic י. However, in Qumran Hebrew it is not clear whether there is any such pattern of orthographic distinction. At least in the case of ל״ה verbs, there is not; the verbs are written in their long or short forms depending solely on grammatical person: all first person wyqtls have a final ה, and almost all others do not.[1] In the case of hollow verbs and Hiphils, the question of whether wayyiqtols can be formally distinguished from weyiqtols in Qumran texts remains unanswered.

 

Elisha Qimron has continued to research this topic.

Qimron, Elisha. “Consecutive and Conjunctive Imperfect: The Form of the Imperfect with Waw in Biblical Hebrew.” The Jewish quarterly review 77 (1986): 149–61.

Qimron, Elisha. “A new approach to the use of froms of the imperfect without personal endings.” Pages 174–81 in The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls & Ben Sira: Proceedings of a symposium held at Leiden University, 11-14 December 1995. Edited by Takamitsu Muraoka and John F Elwolde. Leiden: Brill, 1997.

Qimron, Elisha. “עֻנּוֹת וחברותיה [עֻנּוֹת and Its Kindred Forms].” Leshonenu 67, no. 1 (2004): 21–26.

Qimron, Elisha. “The type וָאֶבְנֶה in the Hebrew of the Dead Sea scrolls.” Pages 149–54 in Conservatism and innovation in the Hebrew language of the Hellenistic period: proceedings of a fourth international symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea scrolls & Ben Sira. Edited by Jan Joosten and Jean-Sebastien Rey. Leiden: Brill, 2008.

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[1] One second person (1QH^a 21:9) and one third person (11QT 51:18) wyqtl have a final ה. Qimron has argued that clause-initial verbs use the long first person forms and short third person forms, and clause-medial verbs use the normal forms (non apocopated and without final ה) (“A New Proposal”; “A New Approach”).