Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Dave Washburn <davidlwashburn AT gmail.com>]

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 3:26 PM, K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com> wrote:

Ken:

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 12:06 PM, Ken Penner <kpenner AT stfx.ca> wrote:

Do the following help?

Joüon §59g: "In the light of Ugr. tštḥwy “she prostrates herself,” what used to be considered hitpa̧ʿlẹl, represented almost entirely by the frequent הִשְׁתַּחֲוָה to worship, to prostrate oneself, is most likely a Hištafʿel of √ חוי."

From where does he get this? 

What you're seeing, both there and in the Jouon quote, is a grammarian trying desperately to figure out what's going on with this unique word. It used to be taught that it was a hitpa`el of $XH with metathesis of the shin and the tau, and no clue why the waw. But as Ken already mentioned, Ugaritic has shown us that the root is actually XWH and the stem is a hi$tap`el. Once upon a time we had a grid of stems with a hole in the middle:

                     Basic             Emphatic              Causative

Active             qal                  pi`el                    hip`il

Passive          nip`al               pu`al                   hop`al

Reflexive         nip`al                 ?                      hitpa`el

Thanks to Ugaritic, we now know what goes where the question mark is. And yes, it only survives in this one word in that language, too. That's an accident of preservation, but I don't really think anybody can deny that the word exists.


-- 
Dave Washburn

Check out my Internet show: http://www.irvingszoo.com

Now available: a novel about King Josiah!