B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

Avichai asks:

and what do you mean by
who is this היא, 'he', in והכבד = ו-היא-כבד

Says I:

The Hebrew word והכבד is about the act כבד, 'heavy, dense, hard', with two augmenting letters ו and ה pre attached to the root KBD.

In my opinion the two letter are remnants of two words qualifying the act. There is quiet an agreement that the initial W signifies "and". But what does the following H signifies? I think it is the curtailed personal pronoun היא, 'he', referring to the actor performing, or otherwise benefitting, from the act KBD.

What we call verbal BINYANIM are merely roots interlaced with such personal pronouns for the performers and beneficiaries of the act. The key to understanding the performance described is identifying the thus inserted, or attached, participant personal pronouns in their specific and respective roles in the execution of the act.

I think that the NIQUD of וְהַכְבֵּד of Ex. 8:11 is to lead us into the thinking that this הכבדה, 'hardening', of the heart is not only the king's doing but also God's. There is something hazy here between the explicit הֻכְבַּד =הוא-כבד with a הוּא identifying the heart, and הִכְבִּיד =היא-כב-היא-ד with the first היא referring to the performer of the act, here Pharaoh, and the second היא referring to the beneficiary of the act, here his act.

Look also at what Rashi says on this verb.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

I wrote: "...with the first היא referring to the performer of the act, here Pharaoh, and the second היא referring to the beneficiary of the act, here his act. " But it should be "here his heart".

Isaac Fried, Boston University

Jemoh66 wrote:

aavichai wrote: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;

“Sad” is not a verb, כבד is a verb, used intransitively in verses like Genesis 48:10 and Psalm 38:5, and transitively (has an object) in verses like Isaiah 25:3, 29:13 and Psalm 22:24.

Jemoh66 wrote:Karl is using the Hophal inappropriately. He is creating two objects.

Nope, There’s only one object. The other is the subject.

The nature of the passive is that the subject is the recipient of an action, the subject doesn’t initiate the action. If ויכבד in Exodus 8:28 is a Hophal, what that says is that pharaoh didn’t initiate the action that he took, rather he was made to do it.

In Exodus 8:11, there the subject of הכבד is לבו with a reference back to pharaoh that it was his heart.

In Exodus 8:28, that cannot be a Hiphil unless you claim that we have a corrupted text, a copyist error. Is that what you want to say?

My personal preference is to assume that the consonantal text is correct, unless there is / are example(s) of manuscripts that give evidence to copyist error(s). I notice that the Masoretes were not as reluctant to assign copyist errors to the consonantal text as I am.

Looking back at Exodus 8:28 and at the uses of the verb כבד as alluded to above, it’s possible that the verb is used in the Qal binyan. I don’t rule that out. It definitely is not a Hiphil.

Karl W. Randolph.

aavichai wrote:I try to realize if you see Hiphil only a form using the letter "YOD"

Correct.

aavichai wrote:…it wasn't so Psychologic, just the way of a man

The study of “the way of a man” is psychology.

Psychology is not the same as psycho-therapy, which is what I think you thought I meant.

aavichai wrote:Now you said that the והכבד can be passive for more reason

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.

But look what you've done here,
the verse starts with וירא פרעה כי באה הרוחה
and then והכבד את לבו

How do you connect his associates to that?

Exodus doesn’t mention why or what caused pharaoh’s heart to be hardened, just that it was hardened.

What pharaoh had said is that his rich associates were about to lose their slaves, so fill in what they thought about that scheme.

But that’s not the only factor that may have caused pharaoh’s heart to be hardened. Because Exodus doesn’t specify the cause, any answer that we give is speculation. We need to be careful not to treat our speculation as evidence.

aavichai wrote:but the first part of this verse say that "He saw", and that lead us only to two options logically

Don’t put yourself into a box, because other options are possible.

aavichai wrote:1. Hiphil - He saw and ++THEREFORE++ he hardened his heard (and we know his heart was כבד (this form) earlier, as it said in
Ex 7:14
ויאמר ה אל משה, כבד לב פרעה

The word כבד here in Exodus 7:14 is an adjective, not a verb.

aavichai wrote:Now notice here that according to your interpretation as Hophal
the "AND" means "BUT"

Not necessarily, I already said that “and” just as possibly means “then” or “afterwards”

aavichai wrote:your next reply was really confusing me
I gave a reference to verse 28 …

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.

… The first comment is talking about that syntax that can't be Hophal because the 'word "פרעה" is there,

Do you realize what you have just said? In spite of every other language being able to express the idea of a passive causative of a transitive verb, you have à priori claimed that that’s impossible in Biblical Hebrew. My response is that Biblical Hebrew is too little known to make such a blanket statement.

aavichai wrote:And in the end I said, that you should find a similar verse with an acceptable and clear Hophal, like הוקם or הושב to prove me worng

I don’t know of any. That’s because I haven’t looked for any. Further, I haven’t been able to afford one of those fancy programs like Accordance that could help me in such a search.

aavichai wrote: If ויכבד in Exodus 8:28 is a Hophal, what that says is that pharaoh didn’t initiate the action that he took, rather he was made to do it

So וילבש משה את אהרן
means that aharon was dressed by Moses who was made to do it?

Don’t say something foolish, that verb is Qal.

aavichai wrote:SECOND: You said yourself in your reply adressing me:

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.

Here you explain that you based your decision because of missreading the verse which the only difference in it is that added word פרעה .

And therefor, verse 11, that doesn't has פרעה in it, is Hophal.

You misunderstand me here. הכבד is a Hophal because of its form. What I was trying to argue is that verse 11 is an example of a passive causative of a transitive verb (the verb כבד can be either transitive or intransitive) but by correcting my reading, it then is an example of a passive causative of an intransitive verb. Therefore, it’s not an exact parallel to verse 28 where ויכבד is a transitive verb.

aavichai wrote:And what is the difference between them:
והכבד פרעה את לבו
ויכבד פרעה את לבו

According to your examples, one is Qatal, the other is Yiqtol, and the reasons for those differences is a whole big subject on its own.

aavichai wrote:here are my thing:

And in verse 28 it is said clearly
ויכבד פרעה את לבו גם בפעם הזאת

It says "Also this time"
Means that this time it's like he did the last time

Not necessarily. It could have been the time before the last time, or the first time. Or it could have been a passive like last time.

aavichai wrote:And if you check the time before (the third disaster) there is
ויחזק לב פרעה
and it doesn't matter if you see this as Qal or Hophal
either way the Actor of this verb wouldn't refer to Pharaoh but for the Heart (Qal) or God (Hophal)

Here we have a passive, which could be either Niphal or Hophal.

aavichai wrote: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
which is the only time that he was active in that sense
and the ויכבד refer to the והכבד as they are the same root (and not like ויחזק)

There are two things here:

1) You are putting yourself into a box that isn’t specified by the language

2) חזק (firm, unyielding) and כבד (unresponsive) are being used as synonyms in this passage.

aavichai wrote:like חלון - is חללון - from חלל

There is no חללון in Tanakh.

aavichai wrote:נתון is from נ-ת-ן

Which like חרה and other verbs often drops its final letter, e.g. נתתי

You are trying to convince me that a verb, where its form is not that of a Hiphil, neither its meaning nor its context require it to be understood as a Hiphil, yet I must read it as a Hiphil. Does that make sense to you? It doesn’t to me.

Do you suppose that’s the reason you’re having so much trouble convincing me that that’s a Hiphil?

Karl W. Randolph.

aavichai wrote:Hi Karl

I will leave that הכבד alone as I said, even though it's tempting not to

There comes a point where we agree to disagree, and stop discussing an issue for reasons of friendship.

aavichai wrote:The thing that interest me though is what you said about how you see the Hiphil in general
only with the YOD
and if it doesn't have a YOD in it, then it can't be Hiphil

But for that I want to say that the original form of the Hiphil is the one without the YOD
and the YOD is not really part of the skeleton of the Hiphil

(I know you don't like it, but keep in mind that this conjugation doesn't have the YOD also in Arabic and Aramic)

Hebrew used the alphabet from at least 1500 BC or earlier, speakers of Aramaic didn’t adopt the alphabet until about 1000 BC, centuries later, about the same time that speakers of Phoenician adopted the alphabet. Arabic didn’t adopt the alphabet until later. Hebrew had the yod to signify the Hiphil from its beginning. Or do you claim that the consonantal text that we now have is corrupted, not as accurate as human copyists can make it?

Again take note of my criticism of relying too much on cognate languages—just because cognate languages had a certain construction doesn’t mean that Hebrew had the same construction, and just because Hebrew had a certain construction doesn’t mean that the cognate languages had the same construction.

aavichai wrote:If it was part of the skeleton - it would always be there

Agreed.

aavichai wrote:The "shorten" version of the Hiphil (which you see as Hophal)
comes only after the letter WAW when it individualizes the tense

Exactly as the longer version of Qal and others get shorten before that WAW
יפנה - ויפן
יקום - ויקם

There are also ויקום and יקם

aavichai wrote:יסיר - ויסר

There are also ויסירו and ויסרו as well as יסרו, so this picture is not so clean.

aavichai wrote:and also Niphal
יראה - וירא
and also Hiphil as well
יקים - ויקם
יבדיל - ויבדל

Both יבדל and ויבדיל are found.

aavichai wrote:The root-form of the יבדל is different than the others for it uses three-letters-root
But through the verb יקים-ויקם i show that the YOD "of the Hiphil" is drooped as well

that's the pattern

Spot checking (I didn’t check all of your examples), that’s not always the pattern.

aavichai wrote:When you see
Levi 9:17
ויקרב את העלה

Do you think for one second that Aaron, dressed in the priestly robes that were not to be messed up, would personally manhandle a dead carcass onto an altar, getting mud, gore and blood smeared onto his clothing? Or would he have others, Levites, do the messy work while he officiates? The Hophal form works fine for the second option.

“He caused the offering to be brought…”

(Literally, קרב means “to come up (to)”, as a Hiphil causative “to cause to come up (to)” with the Hophal being the passive of that.)

aavichai wrote:6. Tell me if you see also the tented forms of Hophal (like והשכמתם) as only Hophal because it doesn't have YOD
or the YOD thing is only about singular3body

thanks

What’s a “tented form”?

Karl W. Randolph.

Avichai says:

The Yod of the Hiphil is actually a mater lectionis for the vowel
and for that,it doesn't represented in the tented Hiphil
like
I הלבשתי and not הלבישתי
you הלבשת and not הלבישת

Says I:

Indeed:
היא-לבש-אתי = הִלְבַּשְתִּי
in which אתי is an old, discarded, variant of אני, 'I', added here at the end to accurately identify, or complement, the general initial PP היא, as the person actually performing the act לבש, namely, the speaker declaring himself to be אתי = אני. The inserted ("prefixed") היא of הלביש is dropped in this construction.

However, The internal היא is retained in the compound
הִלְבִּישַׁנִי = היא-לב-היא-ש-אני
in which the final אני is the speaker who is here the target of the action לבש.
See Isaiah 61:10
כִּי הִלְבִּישַׁנִי בִּגְדֵי יֶשַׁע מְעִיל צְדָקָה יְעָטָנִי
KJV: "for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness"

Isaac Fried, Boston University

Avichai (rightly) says:

all the active-passive conjugations use the same letters exatcly
Qal and its passive - Pa'al-Pu'al פעל-פעל
Piel and its passive - Pi'el-Pu'al פעל-פעל
Hiphil and its passive - Hiphil-Hophal הפעל-הפעל

Says I:
Let us look at some examples.
Nu. 24:9
כָּרַע שָׁכַב כַּאֲרִי וּכְלָבִיא מִי יְקִימֶנּוּ
NIV: "Like a lion they crouch and lie down, like a lioness—who dares to rouse them?"
KJV: "He couched, he lay down as a lion, and as a great lion: who shall stir him up?"
Here, both כָּרַע and שָׁכַב are acts that the lion did by himself upon himself.

The Pual has but the one inserted ("infixed") PP הוּא, 'he', for the beneficiary of the stated act. The instigator of the deed is left out. For example, the שֻׁלַּח = ש-הוּא-לח of Judges 5:15
וְיִשָּׂשכָר כֵּן בָּרָק בָּעֵמֶק שֻׁלַּח בְּרַגְלָיו
KJV: even Issachar, and also Barak: he was sent on foot into the valley

As for
והשכמתם = ו-היא-שכם-אתם
it also appears to be an act that the performer performs by himself upon himself. Consider Gen. 19:2
וְהִשְׁכַּמְתֶּם וַהֲלַכְתֶּם לְדַרְכְּכֶם
KJV: "and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways"

Isaac Fried, Boston University

S_Walch wrote:

Jemoh66 wrote: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.

ἐβαρύνθη ἡ καρδία Φαραώ translates a qal stative of כבד just as well, so looking for a hophal here seems superfluous and forced. Btw that's exactly how the Masoretes read it, a qal wayyiqtol of כבד. So there is no reason to think we even have hiphil here, much less a passive hiphil. It's just expressing that Pharaoh's hard became heavy.
וַיִּכְבַּד֙ לֵ֣ב פַּרְעֹ֔ה. This phrase supports both my points: 1. that כבד is a stative not active; 2. that the natural word order of a wayyiqtol phrase is Verb followed immediately by subject.
Again I have to stress, that the passive of the hiphil of a stative is incoherent.

Despite not having the object marker

There is no Object in this phrase. לֵ֣ב פַּרְעֹ֔ה is the Subject of וַיִּכְבַּד֙, just as the LXX has ἡ καρδία Φαραώ as Subject, thus the nominative case.

, 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.

8:32a, καὶ ἐβάρυνεν Φαραὼ τὴν καρδίαν αὐτοῦ, agrees with the MT pointing וַיַּכְבֵּ֤ד פַּרְעֹה֙ אֶת־ לִבֹּ֔ו גַּ֖ם
9:7 LXX uses the passive to convey the stative and thus agrees with MT.
9:34c The LXX guys marked τὴν καρδίαν as Accusative, so they may have had a text with the accusative marker -et.
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.
To be honest I don't know what they were trying to say with καὶ τῶν θεραπόντων αὐτοῦ; the whole phrase is in the genitive, not just αὐτοῦ. Did they not have ה֥וּא וַעֲבָדָֽיו? Maybe the genitive of τῶν θεραπόντων relates to τὴν καρδίαν, or something like "his heart and theirs too", but that does not coher with the opening καὶ ἐβάρυνεν αὐτοῦ. This verse seems a mess to me. Why does a genitive αὐτοῦ follow the verb?

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?

An interesting speculation, but I haven't seen anything in my reading that suggests it's ever anything but an accusative marker, or the preposition with.

[quoteEdit: 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 [/quote]
Agreed, but I don't see any reason to look for a there where there is no there there. In these particular cases there is no incoherence in the way they pointed these verbs. (thought about this) with one exception 9:34c, and there a hophal would be even more difficult than a hiphil.

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).

at least in these passages it seems they did try. I wonder if this was the beginning of Jewish Greek.

In Ex. 9.7
וַיִּכְבַּד לֵב פַּרְעֹה וְלֹא שִׁלַּח אֶת הָעָם
KJV: "And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go"
NIV: "Yet his heart was unyielding and he would not let the people go"
וַיִּכְבַּד = בא-היא-כבד is with the initial ("prefixed") היא, 'he', designating the heart, that became even harder and still closed up. Also, with שִׁלַּח = ש-היא-לח with an internal ("infixed") היא, 'he', standing for the king, instead of a bare שלח $ALAX devoid of any PPs. It seems to me that the purpose of the internal PP (hinted by a mere dot under the letter shin) is to stress the role of the king in this denial.

In Genesis 43:18
וַיִּירְאוּ הָאֲנָשִׁים כִּי הוּבְאוּ בֵּית יוֹסֵף
NIV: "Now the men were frightened when they were taken to his house"
הוּבְאוּ = הוּא-בא-הוּא is with the initial ("prefixed") הוּא, 'he', to designate the beneficiaries of the act בא, and with a last ("suffixed") הוּא to specify the fact that there are many affected by this act.

In Genesis 43:17
וַיָּבֵא הָאִישׁ אֶת הָאֲנָשִׁים בֵּיתָה יוֹסֵף
KJV: "and the man brought the men into Joseph's house."
וַיָּבֵא = בא-היא-בא is with a YA that is possibly a vestige of HAYAH, later הִיא. The tsere NIQUD, two horizontal dots, is in my opinion a compromise (for different prevailing reading traditions) marking for a xiriq or a patax. Thus, here I would read
וַיָּבֵא = בא-היא-ב-היא-א with the initial היא standing for the man performing the act, and the second היא standing for the men brought into the house.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

Enjoying our discourse here, Jonathan

Jemoh66 wrote:ἐβαρύνθη ἡ καρδία Φαραώ translates a qal stative of כבד just as well, so looking for a hophal here seems superfluous and forced.

That is probably so (aorist tense is used mainly to express the stative, IIRC, which this verb is), but I'm trying to search through my head and think of a place where we have further examples in the LXX, and see whether the active/passive voices (which I've incorrectly referred to as 'tense' before now - apologies, but I always mingle one within the other) are employed for both.

Even as a qal stative, I would still expect the LXX to have it in the active voice.

Btw that's exactly how the Masoretes read it, a qal wayyiqtol of כבד. So there is no reason to think we even have hiphil here, much less a passive hiphil. It's just expressing that Pharaoh's hard became heavy.

Interestingly, the LXX doesn't have the ו translated - has this been swallowed by the noun, or was it not there in their Vorlage?

וַיִּכְבַּד֙ לֵ֣ב פַּרְעֹ֔ה. This phrase supports both my points: 1. that כבד is a stative not active; 2. that the natural word order of a wayyiqtol phrase is Verb followed immediately by subject.

My ponderings on this leads me to look at the other places where we have ἐβαρύνθη in the Greek LXX:

Judg 1:35c:
καὶ ἐβαρύνθη χεὶρ οἴκου Ἰωσὴφ ἐπὶ τὸν Ἀμορραῖον, καὶ ἐγενήθη αὐτοῖς εἰς φόρον.
וַתִּכְבַּד יַד בֵּית־יוֹסֵף וַיִּהְיוּ לָמַס

1 Sam (kingdoms) 5:3d:
καὶ ἐβαρύνθη χεὶρ Κυρίου ἐπὶ τοὺς Ἀζωτίους καὶ ἐβασάνισεν αὐτούς,
(No Hebrew)

1 Sam 5:6a:
καὶ ἐβαρύνθη χεὶρ Κυρίου ἐπὶ Ἄζωτον
וַתִּכְבַּד יַד־יהוה אֶל־הָאַשְׁדּוֹדִים

1 Chron 10:3a:
καὶ ἐβαρύνθη ὁ πόλεμος ἐπὶ Σαούλ
וַתִּכְבַּד הַמִּלְחָמָה עַל־שָׁאוּל

Psa 32 (31 LXX):4:
ὅτι ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτὸς ἐβαρύνθη ἐπʼ ἐμὲ ἡ χείρ σου
כִּי יוֹמָם וָלַיְלָה תִּכְבַּד עָלַי יָדֶךָ

In all of the above, I don't think we have a stative verb, as each time we have a object upon which the subject is being heavy (even when the Hebrew has one implicit, the LXX makes it explicit).

There is no Object in this phrase. לֵ֣ב פַּרְעֹ֔ה is the Subject of וַיִּכְבַּד֙, just as the LXX has ἡ καρδία Φαραώ as Subject, thus the nominative case.

Yes, not quite sure where I was going with this.

To be honest I don't know what they were trying to say with καὶ τῶν θεραπόντων αὐτοῦ; the whole phrase is in the genitive, not just αὐτοῦ. Did they not have ה֥וּא וַעֲבָדָֽיו? Maybe the genitive of τῶν θεραπόντων relates to τὴν καρδίαν, or something like "his heart and theirs too", but that does not coher with the opening καὶ ἐβάρυνεν αὐτοῦ. This verse seems a mess to me. Why does a genitive αὐτοῦ follow the verb?

This is one of those cases where the LXX has actually gone for some idiomatic-Greek translation! Whilst the genitive pronoun can appear anywhere in Greek, the studies of Raija Sollamo, where she goes through the Greek papyri, show that the genitive pronoun will appear mainly before the object which possesses it, similar to how we have it in English (his car, her house etc., etc.). So here, the genitive pronoun comes before its object in idiomatic Greek fashion, rather than the usual LXX fashion of following the Hebrew word-order and have it afterwards.

Plus you are correct in your assessment of what the LXX is going for, "the heart [of Pharaoh], and [the heart] of his servants". Another good reason to have the pronoun before the object, rather than after it.

An interesting speculation, but I haven't seen anything in my reading that suggests it's ever anything but an accusative marker, or the preposition with.

Think aavichai gave us some examples:

Jer 36:22:
וְאֶת־הָאָח לְפָנָיו מְבֹעָרֶת
And the fire-pot before him was burning

Neh 9:34:
וְאֶת־מְלָכֵינוּ שָׂרֵינוּ כֹּהֲנֵינוּ וַאֲבֹתֵינוּ
And our Kings, our officials, our priests, and our ancestors

I've also just re-seen Exodus 10:8 (ta, aavichai!):
וַיּוּשַׁב אֶת־מֹשֶׁה וְאֶת־אַהֲרֹן אֶל־פַּרְעֹה
Where the hophal has its acting persons with the direct-object marker, though here Moses and Aaron are the subjects, and not the accusative object. This is also similar I guess to how Karl sees Exodus 8:11?

At least in these passages it seems they did try. I wonder if this was the beginning of Jewish Greek.

Most definitely at least the starting point when it was beginning to be written down.

Similar to how English, though spoken, didn't really start forming a coherent distinctiveness in its grammar usage until William Tyndale produced his NT English translation. The LXX Greek was producing a written literary language from the one that the Diaspora Jews were speaking


Also, gentlemen - I do think we've stayed far and wide from the original question of this thread! Perhaps a new one just for hophal/hiphil?