In our recent discussions of verb forms a distinction has sometimes
been made between verb forms in narrative and verb forms in poetry.
Well, this is perhaps a flase dichotomy. There are different types of
discourse, e.g. narrative, instructions, prophecy, and each of these
may in principle be expressed in either poetry or prose. In biblical
Hebrew it is rare to find narrative poetry, but this is found in
Psalms 78, 105 and 106. So, as I was anyway working on Psalm 78, I
decided to look at the verb forms found in it. See the table at the
end of this message for the data which I analysed.
I must make it clear that I am working on my own understanding of the
text, based on translations and commentaries. I recognise that there
may be alternative valid interpretations.
Verses 1-11 I am not taking as narrative. But from that point on until
the end of the psalm the text is basically a narrative, with some
exceptions e.g. the short speech verses 19b-20. And, interestingly
enough, the text basically uses the standard narrative verb form,
wayyiqtol, which is rare in other Hebrew poetry, and its negative
(according to Niccacci) W:LO)-qatal.
There are exceptions. The commonest is a pair of lines with wayyiqtol
and X-qatal (or sometimes X-yiqtol), the verb in the second line
commonly being at the very end to form a chiasmus, which probably
indicates some kind of completeness. This apparently occurs in verses
5,23,24,29,31,36,41,50,56,58,62,63,64,66,67,70b-71a,72. There are also
backgound clauses using X-qatal in verses 21[$FMA(],30,31,32,53;
LO)-qatal without waw appears to be background in verses 30,42, but
part of the narrative sequence in verse 50, where it is found next to
narrative yiqtols also without waw. I take verses 34 and 40 as special
construction indicating a repeated situation. It seems to me from the
verb forms that verse 38 is a generic statement about God's character
(note also the absence of pronouns, which reappear along with
wayyiqtol on verse 39).
There remain a number of unusual forms. The first group consists of
the X-qatals in verses 21 and 25, which cannot be background; I wonder
if this is some kind of marking of peak. And then there is yiqtol
where wayyiqtol would be expected in verses 15,45,47,49,50; could
these be a remnant of the alleged short form yiqtol with past meaning
which survives in prose only in wayyiqtol? There are also unexplained
qatals in verses 19,57.
But the overall picture is that narrative is narrative and uses the
regular narrative sequence verb forms even when put into poetic style.
There is little evidence of changes made to fit the poetic rhythm
etc., and it is certainly not true that (as some have come close to
alleging) any verb form can be used in poetry and there are no
distinctions. But there is evidence of yiqtol being used as a past
tense, like wayyiqtol without the conjunction. On this basis one would
expect to analyse other discourse types in poetry in the same way as
the same discourse type in prose, but allowing for this past yiqtol
and for some variation from strict norms.