B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

Charles wrote:
"Isaac, I honestly don't follow what you're trying to say in either of your two posts above.
Do you have any thoughts on how we should read these qatals differently than the wayyiqtols that precede them?"

My response:
Actually, I am not sure what you are after. The "qatal" form does not carry any attached personal pronouns for the third male person. The performer of the act as well as its beneficiary are declared separately: מיכה לקח את הפסל. But, to declare several actors the verb is augmented by the personal pronoun הוּא contracted to a mere U as in לָקְחוּ = לקח-הוּא. The expected הם "suffix" may not be used as it is already taken in לקחם.

The "wayyiqtol" verbal form is a composition. It opens with WA, which in my opinion (as well as others) is a contracted בא or הוה, 'came to pass, and it so happened', followed by a generic personal pronoun for the performer of the act, then it closes with a qualifier personal pronoun. Look again at וַיִּקְחוּ = בא-היא-קח-הוּא. The first היא is generic for the performer of the act לקח, 'take', while the closing הוּא indicates that there were several takers.

The "qatals" in verse 17 בא-הוּא = בָּאוּ ,לָקְחוּ =לקח-הוּא is obviously stylistic device used to avoid a repeated WA.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

Isaac wrote:
"The "qatals" in verse 17 בא-הוּא = בָּאוּ ,לָקְחוּ =לקח-הוּא is obviously stylistic device used to avoid a repeated WA."

So my question is why would the author want to avoid repeated wayyiqtols HERE, in this text (Judges 18:17)? Repeated wayyiqtols are very common in Biblical Hebrew. This is the standard way to advance a plot with sequential events.

Or to put my question a different way, if the author had used wayyiqtols in place of the 2 qatals in verse 17 would we read it any differently?

My hypothesis (see above posts) is that qatals in a context like we have in verse 17 (again see above for details of what that context is) should be understood as restating or expanding on the action of the preceding wayyiqtol rather than describing distinct separate events that follow after the wayyiqtol. That's the hypothesis that I'm testing. Hopefully my explanation isn't too convoluted.

Charles,
I think it is but a question of style, and it seems to me that one does not argue with a poet about his choice of words or grammar.
Verse 17 is in my opinion beautifully and innovatively written, almost in the style of present-day spoken Hebrew, which, by the way, makes no use anymore of the "wayyiqtol" form.
וַיַּעֲלוּ חֲמֵשֶׁת הָאֲנָשִׁים הַהֹלְכִים לְרַגֵּל אֶת הָאָרֶץ. בָּאוּ שָׁמָּה. לָקְחוּ אֶת הַפֶּסֶל וְאֶת הָאֵפוֹד וְאֶת הַתְּרָפִים וְאֶת הַמַּסֵּכָה

Replacing the "qatals" by "wayyiqtols"
וַיַּעֲלוּ חֲמֵשֶׁת הָאֲנָשִׁים הַהֹלְכִים לְרַגֵּל אֶת הָאָרֶץ. ויבואו שָׁמָּה. ויקחו אֶת הַפֶּסֶל וְאֶת הָאֵפוֹד וְאֶת הַתְּרָפִים וְאֶת הַמַּסֵּכָה
does not result, in my opinion, in any change of sense. The flow of the narrative follows the flow of the events as they unfolded, making the "wayyiqtols" unnecessary. In spoken Hebrew one would use אז עלוּ instead of וַיַּעֲלוּ = בא-היא-עלה-הוּא.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

Charles Grebe wrote:Time to go digging in some caves for that extra line of text!
So none of these verses show up in the DSS? Josh 3:16 isn't there either? I don't have access to the DSS.

I downloaded “The-Biblical-Qumran-Scrolls-Eugene-Charles-Ulrich.pdf” from somewhere on the web. From where? I don’t remember. Supposedly it has all the Biblical material found at Qumran. I regularly use it to compare the DSS to the MT, or more often to find that the verse in question isn’t found among the DSS.

Which brings me to your question above—not one of the verses that you mentioned are found among the DSS.

Karl W. Randolph.

kwrandolph wrote:I downloaded “The-Biblical-Qumran-Scrolls-Eugene-Charles-Ulrich.pdf” from somewhere on the web. From where? I don’t remember.

I added it to my favourites

https://archive.org/details/TheBiblicalQumranScrolls