B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

Zechariah 14:9 wrote: והיה יהוה למלך

What it the function of the inseparable preposition ל in למלך? It seems to be a predicate nominative but it was suggested to me that it functions to make מלך a direct object...this just boggles my mind if והיה (will be/will become?) is a stative verb.

Hi, Scott.

היה plus ל is very common for "to turn into something, to become." It is an idiom only to the extent that it does not exactly track with English. Note its retention in the LXX. καὶ ἔσται Κύριος εἰς βασιλέα...

Hi Mark. Your remarks are interesting. I had already looked at the LXX and noted the use of εσται but wouldn't we expect a form of γίνομαι for it to reflect "become"? And I'm interested in getting clarification on whether others view the preposition as an indicator of a direct object.

The use of היה followed by a prefixed ל on a noun indicating that the subject becomes whatever to which the lamed is attached is fairly common. Other examples include Genesis 44:9 where the people say they’ll become slaves, Genesis 48:19, Exodus 4:16, 9:9 where the dust becomes boils on the people and animals, 10:7 the people are a snare to Egypt, 12:3 the blood will become a sign, and so on and so forth.

So I read Zachariah 14:9 the same way, that God will be king. Because the Hebrew verb is timeless, that doesn’t rule out that God is already king and has been king. Context indicates the time focus. The same with the examples above.

I hope this helps.

Karl W. Randolph.

Karl,
The scriptural references are indeed helpful. I'll give them some attention. But a precise description of the grammatical function seems elusive. Would you say that the verb היה is somehow transitive?

Lostntym8 wrote:Karl,
The scriptural references are indeed helpful. I'll give them some attention. But a precise description of the grammatical function seems elusive. Would you say that the verb היה is somehow transitive?

Biblical Hebrew grammar is not the same as English, or even European, grammar. Furthermore, this is a particular combination of words unlike anything I know from Indo-European languages to give a meaning that is given by a different set of words in Indo-European languages.

I don’t think you can give a precise description of the grammatical function according to English grammatical standards.

Karl W. Randolph.

Karl, I found that in Biblical Greek the "be" verb can be used with a preposition and a noun in the accusative as seen at Hebrews 1:5 and 2 Cor 6:18. I'm just blown away that a stative/intransitive verb can be used this way! So with αὐτὸς ἔσται μοι εἰς υἱόν we see υἱόν seems to be the direct object of the preposition. To be sure these particular verses are translational Greek but I have been told that this is not found only in translational Greek.

Thanks for your help!

Lostntym8 wrote:Karl, I found that in Biblical Greek the "be" verb can be used with a preposition and a noun in the accusative as seen at Hebrews 1:5 and 2 Cor 6:18. I'm just blown away that a stative/intransitive verb can be used this way! So with αὐτὸς ἔσται μοι εἰς υἱόν we see υἱόν seems to be the direct object of the preposition. To be sure these particular verses are translational Greek but I have been told that this is not found only in translational Greek.

Thanks for your help!

First of all, this is Hebrew, not Greek.

Secondly, is this a stative? In English, yeah, but not in Biblical Hebrew. Often the verb היה has the idea of becoming, of change, though often has the idea of being as well. So you can’t count on this being stative.

Karl W. Randolph.

Lostntym8 wrote:...wouldn't we expect a form of γίνομαι for it to reflect "become"?

Maybe. Compare Ex. 2:10:

וַֽיְהִי־לָ֖הּ לְבֵ֑ן

καὶ ἐγενήθη αὐτῇ εἰς υἱόν·