An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

Other modes may be used to express the neutrum; note, in the following example,
תאֹ ז. 42
12. תא֑
ֹ ז ת ַעדַ֫ ָל ה ָב ְשּׁ חַ אֲ וָ
׃יני ָ ֵע ְב אוּה ל ָמ ָע
When I tried to understand all this, it was painful to
me. 43
Ps 73:16 Qere
d Finally, אוּה precedes a personal name only in the post-exilic books and has the
force of ‘the same’ without special emphasis. 44
13. ארָ ְ
genealogy]
Ezra 7:6
14.
to introduce an explanatory parenthesis]
ז ֶע אוּה the same Ezra [resumes subject lost track of after a long
תוֹמלֹ ְשׁ אוּה the same Shelomoth [refers to previous verse and serves
1 Chr 26:26
[Page 302] 16.4 Suffixed Personal Pronouns
a The uses of the pronominal suffixes is our chief concern here, but a few words about
their morphology may be useful to begin with.
singular plural
ִ ִ
ֶ ָ
ָ
ֶ ָ
first common י◌ , ינ וּנ
second masc. ךָ ם ֶכ
second fem. ךְ ן ֶכ
third masc. וּה , הֹ , וֹ, ו םה , ם◌ ה , הּ◌ ןה , ן◌ third fem. ָ
The most striking feature of these suffixes is the fact that possessive and objective
forms are the same, except in the first-person singular, where -î is possessive and -nî,
objective. 45 The phonological development of many of the suffixes is complex, but
42
The usual understanding of Judg 11:39 is that the verb wattəhî shows a neutrum
usage, referring to the verbal action described in the next clause (viz., ‘It became the
custom in Israel that…’). P. Trible has proposed that the verb has a true antecedent,
Jephthah’s daughter herself (viz.,’She became a tradition in Israel’); see Texts of
Terror (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 106–7.
43
In this verse, both zō˒t and hû˒ are neutrum pronouns.
44
Cf. Muraoka, Emphatic Words, 65–66.
45
The final yod has a problematic feature. It is generally accepted that, because waw
and yod are similar in several forms of square script, some confusions of first-and
third-person singular suffixes may be found in the MT. (Waw/yod variation is the
most common source of Kethiv-Qere variation; see J. Barr, “A New Look at Kethibh-
Qere,” Oudtestamentische Studiën 21 [1981] 19–37, at 27–28, 33.) M. Dahood,
basing himself not only on such possible confusions but also on comparative
evidence, alleged that Biblical Hebrew actually had a third-person î suffix; see, e.g.,
Psalms III (Anchor Bible 17A; Garden City: Doubleday, 1970) 375–76. There is no
evidence for such a suffix that cannot more simply be explained on the basis of (a