B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

About Ex. 10:8
וַיּוּשַׁב אֶת מֹשֶׁה וְאֶת אַהֲרֹן אֶל פַּרְעֹה וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם לְכוּ עִבְדוּ אֶת יהוה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם
"KJV: And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh: and he said unto them, Go, serve the Lord your God"
Rashi says on וַיּוּשַׁב
ויושב: הושבו על ידי שליח ששלחו אחריהם והושיבום אל פרעה

Isaac Fried, Boston University

That to me seems to be an attempt to explain how the supposedly accusative-object marker is being used with the subject of a verb - we have an unmentioned messenger going and getting them, and bringing them back to Pharaoh. Though even in this case, a passive verb wouldn't make sense (the messenger isn't bringing himself back).

Unless we want to argue that we have a corrupt text in Exo 10:8, and we should actually have וַיָּשֶׁב?

Interestingly, the LXX translates as καὶ ἀπέστρεψαν τόν τε Μωυσῆν καὶ Ἀαρὼν πρὸς Φαραώ - with ἀπέστρεψαν being aorist, active, plural, as if they were reading a hiphil plural - יָּשִׁיבוּ.

Dear Avichai:

I see this is more a question on the nature of the Hebrew passive, especially that of the Hophal, rather than just a question of the Hophal alone.

Some languages have conjugations called Active — Middle — Passive. The Middle is neither fully passive, nor fully active. I have come to the conclusion that the Hebrew passives—Niphal, Pual and especially Hophal—are not the binary passives as we have in English, rather at times contain elements of the MIddle. As such, sometimes the Hophal “passive” is to be translated as “He was caused to (passive action)” and at other times “He caused to (followed by the passive action)”—as long as the action itself is caused and passive, the Hophal will be used.

Translation is not the same as understanding a language within itself, for many reasons.

aavichai wrote:Levi 9:17
ויקרב את העלה

You translated it (in active) - but You see it as Passive of course
like that:
"He caused the offering to be brought…”

You consider it active only because the English helper verb is active. But Biblical Hebrew didn’t have the helper verb, all they had was the verb, with the form that indicated that it was passive and caused. See above, as long as the action is caused and passive, the Hophal will be used.

aavichai wrote:Now I look at another verse
Genesis 43:18
וייראו האנשים כי הובאו בית יוסף
the men were afraid becasue they were brought to Joseph house

Now according to your "rule"

This is a pure binary passive like in English, “…they were caused to come…” or a translation more according to English usage “…they were brought…”

aavichai wrote:Levi 20:26
ואבדל אתכם מן העמים
Here the אתכם is plural and the אבדל is singular -
So the ואבדל is refering here to the actor (GOD) an not the the אתכם - that is את+כם

So how to translate that?

Again you have the caused, passive action, hence the use of the Hophal.

Now the English translation will be active, but that’s because English has different grammar rules.

aavichai wrote:1Samuel 29:10
Akis says to David in an imperative
ועתה השכם בבקר ועבדי אדניך אשר באו אתך.
והשכמתם בבקר, ואור לכם ולכו

If you see והשכמתם בבקר as Hophal it is strange

This is not an imperative, rather a statement of intended actions. Look at the context, he was not commanding, he was telling what was going to happen. This is an example of a binary passive.

aavichai wrote:and the active participle uses את
אני אוהב אותו
I love him

In Biblical Hebrew, to say “I love him” was אני אהבתי אותו using the Qatal form, not the participle as in modern Hebrew. A variant is אני אהבתיו

aavichai wrote:And last thing
Every active verb can be looked as passive as long as I mirror it
and that what you do

Mirror it ??????

aavichai wrote:Avichai Cohen

You have used the term “tent” in a way I have never heard it used before, would you please explain what you mean by it?

I have seen “mirror” used in linguistic studies, but not in the way you used it. Could you please explain what you mean by it?

Karl W. Randolph.

Avichai,

Lev. 9:17
וַיַּקְרֵב אֶת הַמִּנְחָה וַיְמַלֵּא כַפּוֹ מִמֶּנָּה וַיַּקְטֵר עַל הַמִּזְבֵּחַ
KJV: "And he brought the meat offering, and took an handful thereof, and burnt it upon the altar"

is all very clear and straightforward, as you say, with no need for any envisioned presumptive "caused" augmentation to the narrative.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

Karl,
The Hophal must get its meaning from its Hiphil. It cannot generate new fancy meanings. The Hiphil creates meaning, and its hophal expresses that meaning in the passive voice. This is simple and elegant, and it is found throughout Afro-asiatic languages. So I can take say to eat, and when I make it causative, I say to feed. Then if the context calls for a passive I would say to be fed.

In Swahili, the word KARIBU means prep. near, v. draw near. You'll recognize this as cognate of קרב. When you visit someone in Kenya you walk up to their property and you yell, "hodi!" The people inside the house will yell back, "Karibu!" This means "Welcome!" Diachronically it is built on the idea of drawing near. Interesting digression: God says, Draw near to me, and I will draw near to you!" When you draw near to God you bring a sacrifice, which in BH is "cause the sacrifice to draw near."

Anyway, as a linguist I can appreciate the diachronic etymology of the expression "Karibu," but as a near native speaker I know that synchronically the expression just means "Welcome." The verb Karibu draw near, can be made a causative by adding the causative suffix -sha--> karibisha. You can see that it looks like "cause to draw near" but it just means "to welcome." Now if I express this in the passive voice I add the passive suffix -wa-->karibishwa, be welcomed.

I could recount some story like he was welcomed and he was fed. This would correspond to the hophal use. In a hophal construction the subject is the victim of the action of the original hiphil meaning. To suggest that a hophal would be used to keep the causation active while passivizing the root is just way out in left field for my money, and it overliteralizes the idea of causation. It comes across to me like your English/modern mind is biasing you.

Jemoh66 wrote:Karl,
The Hophal must get its meaning from its Hiphil.

Not in Biblical Hebrew. There the Hophal gets its meaning from the Qal. Likewise the Niphal, Piel, Pual, Hiphil, Hitpael all get their meanings from the Qal. All they are, are variations on the action expressed in Qal.

Jemoh66 wrote:It cannot generate new fancy meanings. The Hiphil creates meaning, and its hophal expresses that meaning in the passive voice. This is simple and elegant, and it is found throughout Afro-asiatic languages. So I can take say to eat, and when I make it causative, I say to feed. Then if the context calls for a passive I would say to be fed.

You mentioned this example before. But Biblical Hebrew has a different word for “to feed”, and it’s not the causative of “to eat”. It’s רעה.

(The realization that the literal meaning of a “shepherd” as one who feeds the sheep, gives meaning to John 21:15–17 where Jesus commands Peter to feed his sheep.)

Jemoh66 wrote:In Swahili, the word KARIBU means prep. near, v. draw near. … Anyway, as a linguist I can appreciate the diachronic etymology of the expression "Karibu," but as a near native speaker I know that synchronically the expression just means "Welcome."

Does the native speaker of Swahili still recognize that the basic meaning of “Karibu” is to draw near? And the cultural expectation is that the one who is welcomed draws near? In which case, does your English translation blind you to how a person speaking Swahili actually understands the term?

Jemoh66 wrote:… To suggest that a hophal would be used to keep the causation active while passivizing the root is just way out in left field for my money, and it overliteralizes the idea of causation. It comes across to me like your English/modern mind is biasing you.

One of the techniques I use to get inside of modern languages is to learn exactly what words mean, especially where Iliteral translations into English come out strange or even weird. I find that native speakers psychologically still recognize words’ basic meanings, even where they are used in situations in which English speakers use different words. I see Biblical Hebrew the same way as I see other modern languages, and the same techniques can be used to learn it.

Karl W. Randolph.

aavichai wrote:Hi Karl
Nice talking with you

I agree, and your challenges help me to understand and express what I understand about Biblical Hebrew language.

aavichai wrote:

aavichai wrote:
Levi 9:17
ויקרב את העלה

You translated it (in active) - but You see it as Passive of course
like that:
"He caused the offering to be brought…”

You consider it active only because the English helper verb is active.…

A passive sentence is a grammatical term
and it is not an "understanding" thing - by interpretation - I'll explain later

I see the two connected, not separate.

aavichai wrote:You translated the "offering to be brought" -
and you are right - but...

But When you link the "cause" of the "casual-verb" to the active person
and you made him (and the verb itself) active -
- the sentence itself becomes active - grammatical

Only in English.

If we were to translate exactly the Hebrew verb into a modern language like modern English, we would change things around to “The offering was caused to be brought by him”. Biblical Hebrew differs from modern languages like modern English, and because different grammar rules apply, we don’t make an exact translation in order to bring across the meaning. If we did make exact translations, either the translation will come across excessively wordy and stilted, or it wouldn’t make sense.

When Moses wrote the above phrase, he wanted to express that the action was both passive and caused, as well as the identity of who caused the action. Hence the sentence structure and the verbal conjugation.

aavichai wrote:And I would like you to notice that when you translated:
"He caused the offering to be brought"
you put the TENSE to the "cause" - "CAUSED"

Biblical Hebrew didn’t grammaticalize tense. However, English requires it. So we look at the context to see which English tense to use.

aavichai wrote:And You did that naturally because when you use the word "cause",as the Helper-Verb, it becomes the main-verb - and it is actually the Link-Verb that determine the tense and the main noun (subject)
And you saw the verb ויקרב and saw its gender and ++HAD++ too link it to another noun that fits

I keep saying, don’t confuse translation with meaning in the original language. And this is a good example of why. But even in English, the helper verb is called a helper verb precisely because it doesn’t define the action, it just modifies the action. It doesn’t become the main verb.

The action is the bringing. The Hebrew verb expresses the action. The Hebrew conjugation expresses how the action was done.

aavichai wrote:But if you notice
You translated this verse to active
Like
הקריב את העלה
How would you translate it?
try seeing it Hiphil and you'll translate that the same as you translated the passive

No I wouldn’t. I’d translate it as an active, “He caused the offering to come up” in a literal, stilted fashion, or in a more English manner, “he brought up the offering” or something similar. “Brought” already has the idea of the causative, but it also has the idea of using his own hands to cause the action. And Moses wanted to bring out the idea that Aaron didn’t mess up his priestly robes with manhandling the offering onto the altar, rather he caused it to be done—passive. Therefore the Hophal.

aavichai wrote:What you did is, You created a sentence with passive participle

Passive
Aharon was caused to be dressed

Active
He caused Aharon to be dressed

There’s no participle here. Neither in Hebrew nor in English.

The active is “He dressed Aaron.”

aavichai wrote:I advise you, to check your Axiom again
Read articles about that conjugtion - You know, at least one scholar have to be good

Are the scholar’s words concerning Biblical Hebrew, or Tiberian Hebrew?

I don’t know Tiberian Hebrew. I was told a couple of facts about Tiberian Hebrew, most notably that it had a tense based verbal conjugation system. Biblical Hebrew didn’t have a tense based verbal conjugation system. Where else do the two languages differ?

The Masoretic points were placed according to Tiberian Hebrew. How many times did they misread the text based on the differences between Tiberian Hebrew and Biblical Hebrew? How many of the Hophals did they misread as Hiphils because of the differences between the two languages?

aavichai wrote:You wrote

This is a pure binary passive like in English, “…they were caused to come…” or a translation more according to English usage “…they were brought…”

So you and I agree that translation doesn't have to put the word "cause"

See example above, some of the English verbs already have the causative idea in their definitions. Therefore, when using those verbs, we don’t need to use the helper verb phrase “cause to” for an accurate translation of the meaning.

aavichai wrote:But here, if you want to check this verse in comparison to the verse with the יקרב

we need to translate them in the same way

Nope. That’s a fallacy. It’s a common fallacy, but still a fallacy. The reason is the differences between languages. That’s a fallacy not only for the translation of individual words, but also for syntax and grammar.

aavichai wrote:There is no rule for your Hophal

Yes there is. Where there’s a passive action that is caused, the Hophal will be used. Where the subject that causes the passive action is present in the sentence, the verb will be conjugated according to the causer. Where the causer is not present in the sentence, then the verb is conjugated according to the causee.

aavichai wrote:Let's say you write a Hebrew grammar book
Try to write a rule in general words - and you'll see you couldn't do it

I just did.

aavichai wrote:I wrote
1Samuel 29:10
Akis says to David in an imperative
ועתה השכם בבקר ועבדי אדניך אשר באו אתך.
והשכמתם בבקר, ואור לכם ולכו

Now the question here is how do you see the השכם
is it perfect tense?

Biblical Hebrew didn’t have tense.

Literal translation, “…and you will be caused to be roused…”

aavichai wrote:I said:
"and the active participle uses את
אני אוהב אותו
I love him"

and you said

In Biblical Hebrew, to say “I love him” was אני אהבתי אותו using the Qatal form, not the participle as in modern Hebrew. A variant is אני אהבתיו

Sometimes I'll put sentences that doesn't appears in the bible - and maybe I change it a little bit
But I want you not to be picky but understand the Idea
(the Modern hebrew thing here, is a long discussion - in this case the modern fit the patteren of biblical - participle+את - just replace the verb)

No it doesn’t, and a survey of recorded speech in narrative portions of Tanakh will bring it out. That survey will take about a year, if you can read Tanakh quickly.

aavichai wrote:2Samuel 13:4
את תמר אחות אבשלם אחי אני אהב

Genesis 25:28
ורבקה אהבת את יעקב

Deut 13:4
הישכם אהבים את ה

These are all cases where the participles would be gerunds in English, and gerunds are nouns.

aavichai wrote:or let's replace the verb and keep it participle

Psalm 145:20
שומר ה את כל אהביו

or participle Hiphil
Deut 12:10
אשר ה אלקיכם מנחיל אתכם

Genesis 9:9
הנני מקים את בריתי

These are cases where the participles are actor-nouns, not verbs.

Has anyone made a study of patterns used by ancient Hebrews to derive nouns from verbs, and the meanings that those patterns impart to the nouns?

We have patterns in English. To give an example, to act has the derivatives act, actor, acting, active, action, actable, actability, and maybe other derivatives. Another example is to consign, derivatives consigner, consignee. Once one knows the patterns, he can even make up words—neologisms—that everyone can understand.

I expect that similar patterns existed in Biblical Hebrew, has anyone made a study to find those patterns?

aavichai wrote:I think it is all about the false Axiom, my friend
once you see that Axiom as false - everything becomes logic and no contradicional

But then it causes (in this case not a helper verb) other problems.

Karl W. Randolph.

How is everyone here understanding the 'passive'?

In most understandings of grammar, the passive is when the "subject 'undergoes', 'experiences', or 'receives' the action denoted by the verb." (Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar, 2nd Edition, 2014). I take it therefore that in Lev 9:17, we're talking of the sacrifice as the subject, and not the object?

Just clarifying, as I'm getting a bit confused with everything that's being said

For example Gen. 42:28
הוּשַׁב כַּסְפִּי וְגַם הִנֵּה בְאַמְתַּחְתִּי
KJV:"My money is restored; and, lo, it is even in my sack"
with הוּשַׁב = הוּא-שב, 'he back', כַּסְפִּי כסף-אני, 'my money'.

Getting involved in this suspense story we immediately start to speculate about the perpetrator (causer = cause-er) of this baffling deed, after all, money is not a cat to jump into a sack all by itself.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

In Gen. 44:3-4
הַבֹּקֶר אוֹר וְהָאֲנָשִׁים שֻׁלְּחוּ הֵמָּה וַחֲמֹרֵיהֶם. הֵם יָצְאוּ אֶת הָעִיר לֹא הִרְחִיקוּ
KJV "As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away, they and their asses. And when they were gone out of the city, and not yet far off"
the three consonantal act שלח is here with an internal PP, הוּא, 'he'.
שֻׁלְּחוּ = ש-הוּא-לח-הוּא, with the inserted הוּא standing for the men, and the end הוּא added to signify plurality.
Also, הִרְחִיקוּ = היא-רח-היא-ק-הוּא with the initial and internal היא standing both for the men performing and benefiting from the act רחק.

Isaac Fried, Boston University