שלום in Jeremiah 4:10

[kwrandolph]

Your whole reply was based on one point eventually

In these cases we have causative passives of a transitive verbs. As transitive verbs, they have their own objects, but their subjects are acted upon.

And I don't understand what you say


Explain to me in that verse
ויכבד פרעה את לבו

As I wrote before, I need the context from other verses in order to translate it.

The form יכבד by itself can be Qal, Niphal, Piel, Pual, Hophal.

Add פרעה as the subject with לבו as the object, that reduces the options to Qal, Piel and Hophal.

Exodus 4:21 God said he would harden pharaoh’s heart.

In the context of chapter 8:11, we have the hophal form relating to pharaoh being caused to harden his heart. This is in parallel to the phrase you quote above. Seeing as hophal is the passive, “to be caused to”, I read the other examples in the chapter as passive as well. Context is the key.

Also give examples from other verses

Examples of what? Hophal use?

Because you are the one that claim that he read it right while all the other in the world (or universe) read it in another way
So the proof (at least as I see it) is on you, to tell us why we are wrong.

It doesn’t matter what other people say, look at the text. Or do you have alternate readings from other manuscripts, such as from the DSS?

can you accept ויכבד as Hophal in only
ויכבד את לבו
?

See above. I read it as a Hophal only because of its context. Without the context, it can be read as a Qal or Piel as well as a Hophal.

What’s the problem in accepting that the verbs concerning pharaoh’s heart are in Hophal?

Karl W. Randolph.

[kwrandolph]

look at the full context
כי-אמת עשית, ואנחנו הרשענו
ואת-מלכינו שרינו כהנינו ואבתינו, לא עשו תורתך
ולא הקשיבו, אל-מצותיך, ולעדותיך, אשר העידת בהם

if it was "with" so it would also be "עשינו" and not "עשו"

First of all, Nehemiah, like all the other post Babylonian Exile writers, was not a native speaker of Hebrew. From his history, his native tongue was probably Persian, though possibly but less likely Aramaic. In spite of that, he did fairly well in writing Hebrew, but not perfect.

If you want the full context, you need to start with verse six. What you have here is only part of verse 33 extending through verse 34. Even if you start with verse 31, the main subjects are the kings, princes, priests, prophets and people.

Apparently the book of Nehemiah wasn’t found among the DSS, so we can’t tell if this verse may have been miscopied sometime in the past.

So we’re left with a difficult reading. I don’t have all the answers, but at the moment I still think that ואת starting verse 34 probably still means “with”.

Karl W. Randolph.

[Jemoh66]

וַיַּכְבֵּ֤ד פַּרְעֹה֙ אֶת־ לִבֹּ֔ו

This is a straight-forward phrase.
1. It's a classic wayyiqtol phrase
2. The case for a typical wayyiqtol phrase is strengthened by the fact that it appears in its natural context: narrative.
3. So one would expect the typical word order: Verb-Subject-Object. And that's what we find.
a. Its word order is VSO: וַיַּכְבֵּ֤ד (V), פַּרְעֹה֙ (S), אֶת־ לִבֹּ֔ו (O).
b. The verb is transitive and has an object, which is further strengthened by the Accusative marker את.

4. The root meaning כבד is stative, to be heavy. The causative form then has the literal meaning cause to be heavy. A Hophal would be incoherent. The correct translation of the hiphil form is "but he hardened."

A hophal in this case is simply incoherent.
The most egregious part of this is stripping כבד of its normal meaning. It means concretely to be heavy, weighty, and by extension its later/abstract meaning is to be honored. This is confirmed by its cognates: Ethiopic (don't have the font) be heavy, etc.; Assyrian kabâdu or kabâtu, grow or be heavy.
It is not a transitive or active verb. It's a stative verb. The Hiphil of a stative root on the other hand is an active/transitive verb.

Imposing a Hophal on this passage just calls for too much ad hoc changes, and is convoluted

[kwrandolph]

Dear Avichai:

I had other things I had to get done, which is why I was absent for a few days.

There are a few ideas I should say as a background:

I know I’m not the most socially smooth person in the universe. The result is that I have been accused of treating other people dishonorably, when that was not my intention at all. So I ask you in advance to recognize that I have no intention to treat you dishonorably.

Over the years of reading Tanakh through many times, I have come to the realization that we don’t know Biblical Hebrew as well as we would like to claim. That assessment includes people acclaimed as “experts’. In fact, I think many of the “experts” have had their knowledge of Biblical Hebrew harmed by studying cognate languages such as Ugaritic, Mishnaic Hebrew, Arabic, modern Hebrew, etc. The more one knows of these other languages, the harder it is to recognize and separate out what is unique to Biblical Hebrew.

A third point I want to make is that I have dyslexia. That is both a curse, and a blessing. Most people know it as a curse, as it causes people to misread words and numbers. There are other negative effects that effect even my writing. One aspect of that is when I misread something, that tends to stick in my mind each subsequent time I try to read it until I go away from if for a while, then return.

A positive effect is that the way I have used to compensate for dyslexia is to read in context. Most of the time contextual clues warn me when I misread words. In order for contextual clues to work, I needed to develop a large vocabulary, and misspellings make it harder to recognize contextual clues. That compensation has helped me to recognize and learn syntax and other patterns of language usage.

With this background, I just realized that I had based my whole argument on Exodus 8 on a misreading of the text. I had read verse 11 as וירא פרעה כי היתה הרוחה והכבד פרעה את לבו ולא שמע אלהם  כאשר דבר יהוה but when I reread it after being away a few days, I found וירא פרעה כי היתה הרוחה והכבד את לבו ולא שמע אלהם  כאשר דבר יהוה. Oh NO! As long as we were in the heat of discussion, I kept misreading the text the same way.

Having said the above, the pertinent verb in verse 11 is still a Hophal.

Concerning my second point above, that Biblical Hebrew is not as well known as we would want to claim, how would one say in Biblical Hebrew “David was caused to load the gunnysack on the donkey”? That would be a Hophal with a subject and an object. Connected with this question, is there any such construct in Tanakh? (If such a construct is found, has it been mislabeled as a Hiphil by the Masoretes and anyone who follows the Masoretic points?) I have gotten used to asking question for which I receive no answers, or even that the answers don’t exist.

Yours, Karl W. Randolph.

[S_Walch]

FWIW, the Greek Septuagint translates והכבד as a passive/hophal:
ἰδὼν δὲ Φαραὼ ὅτι γέγονεν ἀνάψυξις, ἐβαρύνθη ἡ καρδία αὐτοῦ καὶ οὐκ εἰσήκουσεν αὐτῶν, καθάπερ ἐλάλησεν Κύριος.
But Pharaoh, after seeing that a respite had come to be, his heart became heavy and he did not listen to them, just as Yahweh had spoken.
(LXX 8:15 = Heb 8:11)

So Karl's reading of it as a hophal has a good 2000+ year old translation behind it, which also demonstrates that Jews of the time understood it as a hophal, and not hiphil like the Masoretes.

Wish we had easy access to the Aquilla translation of Exodus - would be able to see whether a development from hophal to hiphil had occurred by the 2nd Century CE, or whether it is an even later understanding.

Let me see if I can find anything listed for this verse in Fried's Hexapla - watch this space!

Edit:
Hexapla note - Άλλος: εβαρυνε την καρδιαν αυτου/others: he made his heart heavy.

So yes, by the 2nd century CE (assuming Fried's readings of marginal notes in manuscripts is correct, and that these manuscripts record what was actually written by the non-LXX translators), we have evidence of understanding this as hiphil rather than hophal.

Unfortunately, we don't know whether this is just the reading of Aquila, or just of Theodotion, or just of Symmachus, or all of them together. My Latin is also shocking, so reading Fried's Hexapla is quite the task =/

Then it says in verse 11
וירא פרעה כי הייתה הרוחה
And Pharaoh saw that the "release"/"Comfort time" has come
(i mean he saw that "peace" has come) - i dont know to translate that - but you understand

Respite/relief would be some good word choices here

[Jemoh66]

Hi Jonathan

Didn't understand you fully
Do you agree with my (two) comments or is there anything you'd like to correct?

It's a classic wayyiqtol phrase

Are you sayin this is Qal?

Yes I agree with you. I am making a case for the hiphil. This is a Hiphil stem conjugated in the wayyiqtol or what some grammarians call the preterite form. The phrase then can be said to be a wayyiqtol phrase.

The case for a typical wayyiqtol phrase is strengthened by the fact that it appears in its natural context: narrative

What is that mean?
can you give example of strengthened cases vs. Not strengthened?

In making my case for a Hiphil stem, I am showing that the word order of the phrase is the expected word order of a wayyiqtol phrase (VSO). This means the object of the verb in this phrase is אֶת־ לִבֹּ֔ו. So what I meant was that what strengthens my case (or the argument that this a typical wayyiqtol word order (verb subject object) is the fact that it occurs in a narrative. One of the things you have to consider as a linguist is the type of discourse you are dealing with. In the case of Exodus we are dealing with Narrative Discourse. The discourse affects the meaning of the sentence as much as the grammar and syntax does.

The most egregious part of this is stripping כבד of its normal meaning

I don't think Karl stripped the כבד meaning - He did refer it to the heart
but he also refer it to Pharaoh, like he was "heavied" and by that unwillingly hardened his heart (and here I gree that the meaning was changed)

The meaning כבד is "to be heavy;" it is not an action, it is a state. By analogy, consider the English word sad; it describes a state, no action involved. In English I can use this and create a causative verb with it by adding the causative suffix -en: sadden. The result is a verb that describes an action, and from a grammatical standpoint it is a transitive verb which requires an Direct Object. We do the same with hard-->harden.

Karl is using the Hophal inappropriately. He is creating two objects. He is splitting up the causative with the root, and giving each one its object. The object of the causative, Pharaoh, and the object of the root, his heart. This is not how a hophal works. The hophal is just the hiphil in the passive voice. The hophal could work if the Subject were the heart of Pharaoh: ויכבד לב פרעה. Literally, and it was caused to be hard the heart of pharaoh, and in translation, Pharaoh's heart was hardened The hophal should simply be the passive of the hiphil. In the case of הכבד, the hiphil means cause to be heavy, harden, and the hophal means be caused to be heavy, be hardened.

It is not a transitive or active verb. It's a stative verb. The Hiphil of a stative root on the other hand is an active/transitive verb

didn't get you
first you said that this is not transitive or active verb
then you said that The Hiphil of a stative root on the other hand is an active/transitive verb

so you see this verb as Hiphil or not?

When you said: "It's a stative verb"
you mean: It's a stative root?

The root is stative; the hiphil of a stative root is transitive.

[Isaac Fried]

So, at first the heart was light (or soft), or at least not very heavy (or hard). Then after Pharaoh saw כי הייתה הרוחה, that there was relief, his heart became, factually, heavy, כבד, or hard. Now, the question is who caused this change of heart, Pharaoh by his own will, God, the heart itself, a runaway hormonal flood, natural causes?

Grammatically speaking, the question is who is this היא, 'he', in והכבד = ו-היא-כבד.

Isaac Fried
Boston University

[Jemoh66]

Thanks Ste,

FWIW, the Greek Septuagint translates והכבד as a passive/hophal:
ἰδὼν δὲ Φαραὼ ὅτι γέγονεν ἀνάψυξις, ἐβαρύνθη ἡ καρδία αὐτοῦ καὶ οὐκ εἰσήκουσεν αὐτῶν, καθάπερ ἐλάλησεν Κύριος.
But Pharaoh, after seeing that a respite had come to be, his heart became heavy and he did not listen to them, just as Yahweh had spoken.
(LXX 8:15 = Heb 8:11)

So Karl's reading of it as a hophal has a good 2000+ year old translation behind it, which also demonstrates that Jews of the time understood it as a hophal, and not hiphil like the Masoretes.

Yes, but notice they see the subject of the hophal as "his heart", which suggests that they had something like והכבד ליבו. I would not object to a hophal in that case. The Masoretes however had a MS that reads והכבד את לבו. So seeing the accusative marker before לבו, they naturally saw it as a hiphil, with in the 3rd p referring to Pharaoh.

[S_Walch]

I don't like see the Greek Septuagint as an evidece for a lot of things for a lot of reason
first it is a translation
the translation carry an independet interpretation with it
and not only that it is a translation, it was made for another culture with another theology

Granted, but the LXX is an essentially literal translation, one that breaks the rules of Greek grammar in order to conform to the wording of the Hebrew Vorlage - It shouldn't be dismissed just because it's a translation.

Google The Interlinear Paradigm for a popular belief regarding the LXX.

I also know that Septuagint added and changed little words here and there because of explaining the theology - so it should understood as they wanted - and not let the other culture makes a reference to their own theology

Unfortunately, the added and/or changed words don't necessarily indicate that the translator was explaining anything theological - The Dead Sea Scrolls have demonstrated that they're quite probably based on a different Hebrew Vorlage that differed from the Masoretic Hebrew. Again, the LXX shouldn't be dismissed outright, and should always be considered as a separate witness to something.

In this case, even though, it is not about a rood definition, but it is about syntax or the tenting of a verb - so it is harder to count on that

So for this case i don't see it as something we can rely on

It is a 2000+ year old example of someone (most likely a Jew) reading the text as hophal rather than hiphil, and translating it using the passive tense of the verb. In the same way that the translator translated Exod 9:34 using the active tense ἐβάρυνεν to indicate that he was reading יַּכְבֵּד as hiphil rather than hophal. The Greek translators were actually pretty good at getting the different meanings across using the Greek tense-system

Thank you, I know this word
i don't know how it got out of my head
maybe the sound of it made me wrote "Release"
By the way, are those from the same "root"? (relief & release)

According to http://www.etymonline.com they're not - Release is a variant of relax from the Latin relaxare; Relief comes from the verb relieve via French from Latin relevare. They both have the re- prefix though, which indicates a sense of 'undoing' something - http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?ter ... in_frame=0

Yes, but notice they see the subject of the hophal as "his heart", which suggests that they had something like והכבד לביו. I would not object to a hophal in that case. The Masoretes however had a MS that reads והכבד את לבו. So seeing the accusative marker before לבו, they naturally saw it as a hiphil, with in the 3rd p referring to Pharaoh.

If we didn't have Exod 9:7 translated as follows, then I would have to concede on that:

ἰδὼν δὲ Φαραὼ ὅτι οὐκ ἐτελεύτησεν ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν κτηνῶν τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ οὐδέν, ἐβαρύνθη ἡ καρδία Φαραώ, καὶ οὐκ ἐξαπέστειλεν τὸν λαόν.

Despite not having the object marker, all we have here is the noun Φαραώ in place of the pronoun αὐτοῦ, but we still have the LXX reading passive rather than active even here. It could be that they had a different Vorlage in both cases, or 8:11 read והכבד לבו. But then that doesn't explain why in Exod 9:34c, despite no accusative object marker, the LXX reads: καὶ ἐβάρυνεν αὐτοῦ τὴν καρδίαν καὶ τῶν θεραπόντων αὐτοῦ. Then finally we have 8:32a (Heb 8:28), where the LXX has: καὶ ἐβάρυνεν Φαραὼ τὴν καρδίαν αὐτοῦ.

Four different verses, where the Masoretes pointed all as hiphils/active qal, but LXX only has two as active, rest passive. LXX has been literal in all four verses as well.

The question would be: does אֶת always indicate that the attached substantive is an accusative/therefore the object, or effectively just points to the substantive that is being affected by the verb in question, whether the verb is active or passive?

Edit: I'm not actually arguing for reading the hophal vs hiphil in these verses, just highlighting the fact that the Masoretic vowel points aren't the be-all end-all of an argument

Also like to point out an interesting thing in the LXX translation: notice that all instances of לבו when as direct object have the pronoun in the genitive (αυτου - την καρδιαν αυτου), rather than what should actually be expected with the accusative object - αυτον (την καρδιαν αυτον). This is a case of the slavishness of the Greek translator, who conforms to the Hebrew genitive construct, whereas it would be better Greek to have it as accusative, or in the case of normal Greek, not bother having the pronoun at all (when the referent is obvious, normal Greek writers wouldn't bother with the possessive pronoun).

[kwrandolph]

Dear Avichai:

second, I disagree with you saying that the other semitic languages have low value to understand the Hebrew

My statements concerning language learning are true for all languages, not just Biblical Hebrew. For example, does one learn more about Norwegian and some of its little known and unique features by learning also Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Dutch, German and English, or by studying Norwegian so deeply that he learns it as well as a native speaker? So the same way, is not the best way to learn Biblical Hebrew being through reading Tanakh many times (recognizing that Tanakh contains only a subset of Biblical Hebrew from when it was spoken as a native tongue), or by studying Mishnaic Hebrew, modern Hebrew, Aramaic, Ugaritic, etc.? I understand most scholars have taken the second route.

For Hebrew, did you know that Mishnaic Hebrew has a different grammar than the grammar used in Biblical Hebrew? And that some of the words have different meanings? One reason I stopped reading according to the Masoretic points is because the points represent Tiberian Hebrew, not Biblical Hebrew.

The argument was (as i understood), about verse 28

Talk about misunderstanding! From what you say here, you concentrated on one verse out of the whole narrative, whereas I considered the whole narrative starting at Exodus 5:1 through 14:17. I pointed to the one example of verse 8:11, but in the background I considered the other examples as well.

Because i refered also to chapter 9:34

You meant Exodus 9:35 here. The form of that verb can be Qal, Niphal, Piel, Pual, or Hophal, not Hiphil nor Hitpael. We need other contextual clues to tell us which it is.

First, According to the context of the stories like we said we have to do
This verse talks about Pharaoh comes after the disaster of the frogs
The frogs came, Pharaoh begged, and then the frogs are gone

Then it says in verse 11
וירא פרעה כי הייתה הרוחה
…
And then comes the word והכבד

you say this is Hophal

That’s the only binyan it can be, unless you claim that the text was corrupted here.

…what is the relevance between those two parts of the verse?
why does it has to say that he saw that the comfort time has come before his heart was hardened?

Unless there is casual connection between those parts

You mean “Unless there is a causal connection…” On the whole, you are doing pretty well in English.

The action of hardening is a result from the feeling that he had

The first part of the verse gives us the reason for the והכבד

Not necessarily. The connection can be merely temporal. The reason could be from other sources, e.g. his rich associates fearing the loss of their slaves may have put a lot of pressure on him, and the pressure may have caused his heart to become hardened.

The "AND" means here:
"And becaue of that"
or "And therefore"

“And” in Biblical Hebrew does have a larger circle of meaning than it has in English. In my dictionary I list it as follows: “ו (prefix) this is a connecting mark that leads from one idea to the next. It is normally used to show a continuity, where the following is connected to or a consequence of the previous. In English, there are times where it is best to omit it, often translate it as “and” though sometimes it is best to translate it as “that”, “such that”, “then”, “in order that”, and possibly other combinations showing continuity from one idea to the next.” In spite of “and” having a wider meaning than in English, I think a causal relationship is pushing it for its usages in Biblical Hebrew. If I remember correctly, the causal relationship is carried by the phrase על כן.

More i say that many times this pattern continue - it is said from time to time that Pharaoh hardenend is heart - literaly

And in verse 28 it is said clearly
ויכבד פרעה את לבו גם בפעם הזאת
And Paraoh hardened his heart also this time

…If after two disasters, he became soft and broken, and God needed to harden his heart,
Then after four disasters, we would expect that he would be more broken - and not tougher

Again, the form of the verb can be Qal, Niphal, Piel, Pual, Hophal, but not Hiphil nor Hitpael, unless you claim that the text was corrupted here too.

It looks as if you start with a psychological understanding, then read into the text what you think the text should say, whereas I start with what the text actually says, then try to see how it all fits together.

…So we have to understand that this wasn't the first time HE did it

Was he caused to do it? The form of the verb is open to that reading.

And therefore, the only time left is our verse which uses the exact root כבד
so the ויכבד פרעה את לבו גם בפעם הזאת refer directly to והכבד את לבו

OK…

which is the only time that he was active in that sense

That’s what I question, the claim that it was active and not passive.

and the ויכבד refer to the והכבד as they are the same root (and not like ויחזק)

And I say it’s the other way around.

and also because there is no other option

Why no other option?

and also because of the logic (second disaster vs. forth)

So it means that והכבד is the action made by Pharaoh - Hiphil

In short, your claim is that the text has been corrupted. And that claim is based on psychology and logic, not based on finding manuscripts that have your reading. Do I understand you correctly?

as for והכבד את לבו
This is infinitive that can be use in any form we want also as "he hardened" in Hiphil perfect and it continue the pattern of וירא
and we shouldnt look at it strange becaue we know that form and pattern
like in Genesis 41:43 ונתון אותו על כל ארץ מצרים
ונתון is infinite and here it meanes qal perfect
ונתן אותו על כל ארץ מצרים

Nope, this example from Genesis doesn’t parallel Exodus 8:11. In Genesis 41:43, the waw nun suffix changes the verb to a noun. Another example is the noun חרון. The Exodus 8:11 form is a Qatal Hophal form.

And you right that i cant think of a word in the meaning of "made someone to do somethig"

But one cannot categorically say that such a construct didn’t exist in Biblical Hebrew. It may even appear in Tanakh, but we don’t see it because the Masoretes may have incorrectly pointed it as a Hiphil.

There are over 1700 words that are used only once in Tanakh, so why not also an unusual sentence structure to express an idea that is almost never expressed in Tanakh?

In the story with eve and the sanke she said to God that
הנחש השאני ואכל
the snake "seduce"/"Convinced" me, and i ate

Here Eve wanted to bring out an idea that a mere Hophal wouldn’t bring out, namely who was to blame (she wanted to pass blame on someone else than herself). A simple “I was caused to eat…” wouldn’t carry that idea.

So for now, if i think of a verb for that - that is the closest i can think of
Avichai Cohen

Karl W. Randolph.