Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

   John,

    Yes, agreed that השתחוה is  a biblical form of
  Istaf'ala, as is its forerunner in Ugaritic. I am
 familiar of the Arabic Af'ala , the equivalent of
 the Hebrerw  Hif'il, but what is  "if'alla" you mention?

  The problem with deriving Hishtahawa from the
 root Shin Het Heh is that the Waw is not found
 in the latter.

  Incidentally,  somebody claimed that the root
 Het Waw He root does not exist in the HB --
 see  Job 19:3 and other occurrences.

  Uri Hurwitz                Wilmington  Vt

  kalbun hayyun kahyrun min asadin maytin
     ( the Arabic version of Eccl. 9:4)


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 Petr, the difference between the root שחה and השתחוה is an extension by 
gemation of the last letter, which does otherwise occur in, say, the Arabic 
if'alla and if'ālla. But alhough you and I are both certain this is a 
hištaph'el, that's not how it was understood as in Biblical times. 
 
Karl, the שחה forms you are talking about are back-formations from השתחוה as 
it was no longer seen as being a hišaph'el from חוה but a hithpa'lel from 
שחה. Note that the words are both few and late in date. The medieval Jewish 
grammarians who later classified Hebrew grammar on the model of Arabic 
grammatical models would have been aware of both the Arabic if'alla and the 
istaf'ala forms and they seem to have preferred the former option. Today we 
have a clearer picture of the structure of Semitic languages than they could 
have had then, and can see the development of the word.
 
John Leake