An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

Deut 20:5
Indefinite ימ can be used absolutely (with no relative clause following) and as a
vocative.
31.
ימ־וּר ִ ְמ ִשׁ Take care, whoever [you may be].
2 Sam 18:12
Indefinite ימ can be used in the accusative function.
32. ימ־ת ִ אֶ
. . . וּרחֲ ַבּ
ןוּדֹב ֲעת ַ
Choose…whom you will serve.
Josh 24:15
f Exclamatory and rhetorical questions in ימ must be recognized from context, though
there are patterns associated with each group. Exclamatory questions usually have a
non-perfective verb, and the sense is desiderative: ‘Who will act?’ > ‘Oh that
someone would act!’
33. םִימ ַ֫
ינִ קֵ֫ ְשַׁי ימִ Oh that someone would give me water to drink!
34.
35.
ר ַמאֹ י־י ִ
ט ֵפֹשׁ ינִ ֵמ ֫ ִשְׂי־י ִ
2 Sam 23:15
מ Who would (dare to) say…?
Job 9:12
מ Oh that I were appointed šopet!
2 Sam 15:4
The fixed expressions ןתי ימ and עדוי ימ convey wish (# 36) or doubt (# 37). 13
ברֶ ֶע ֫ ןתִּי־י ֵ ִ
36.
מ If only it were evening!
Deut 28:67
37. הוהי ינ ִ ַנּ֫ חְי ַ עַ דוֹי ֵ ימִ Perhaps YHWH will be gracious to me.
2 Sam 12:22
Often, as in the last two examples, the outcome is unobtainable.
[Page 322] g Rhetorical questions aim not to gain information but to give information
with passion. Properly speaking, this use should be considered in connection with
figures of speech. The rhetorical use of the interrogative pronoun ימ, however, for
self-abasement or for insult occurs within a consistent grammatical structure and is
therefore considered here. According to George W. Coats, the two structural elements
in this pattern are
…an introductory question constructed as a noun clause with interrogative particle ה ָמ or ימ ִ
and pronoun, name, or noun, and a following assertion, introduced by י ִכּ, ר ֶשׁ א, ֲ or a waw
consecutive imperfect and constructed around a verbal form. The second element regularly
picks up the object of the first element as the subject or object of the verb or the object of a
13
See J. L. Crenshaw. “The Expression mî yôdēa˓ in the Hebrew Bible,” Vetus
Testamentum 36 (1986) 274–88.