An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

Niphal forms, etc. Of this literature Tene writes: “The study of the language never
attained such fine and sharp distinctions as those in the controversy which
developed around the works of Hayyuj in the generation of Ibn Janaḥ and Samuel
ha-Nagid.” 16 Of Ibn Janāḥ‘s later works, written in Arabic as all his books were,
the most important is Kitāb al-Tanqīḥ (Hebrew Sepher ha-Diqdaq, The Book of
Detailed Investigation). This consists of two parts, Kitāb al-Luma˓(grammar) and
Kitāb al-Uṣūl (a dictionary). Tene rhapsodizes on the great Kitāb:
This two-part work, with the writings of Ḥayyuj and the shorter works of Ibn
Janāḥ…, form[s] the first complete description of biblical Hebrew, and no similar
work—comparable in scope, depth, and precision—was written until modern
times.[Page 36]
This description constitutes the high point of linguistic thought in all [medieval
grammatical] literature. 17
He comments in summary, “The authors of this period are the great creators of
Hebrew linguistics.” 18
2.2.2 Period of Dissemination (1150–1250)
a The century following the middle of the twelfth century was a period of
dissemination, directly stimulated by the political tribulations of 1148, brought on
by the Almohade conquest of southern Spain. Jewish intellectuals, exiled to Italy
and to southern France, brought with them the works of Ḥayyuj, Ibn Janāḥ,
Samuel ha-Nagid, and others. These works were both adapted and translated. The
traveling scholar Abraham ibn Ezra (1089–1164), through his copious writings,
notably commentaries and grammatical works, popularized the ideas of the
Spanish grammarians and in general brought the benefits of Arab science to
European Jewish communities cut off from Spanish Jewry. In Rome around 1140
he produced his grammar in Hebrew, a first, based on Arabic sources. 19
16 Tene, “Literature,” 1357; cf. Chomsky, Mikhlol, xix.
17 Tene, “Literature,” 1357.
18 Tene, “Literature,” 1358.
19 According to C. Rabin, The Evolution of the Syntax of Post-Biblical Hebrew
(Oxford Dissertation, 1943) 91, his Hebrew is more mishnaic than Rashi’s; see more
generally F. Greenspahn, “Abraham Ibn Ezra and the Origin of Some Medieval
Grammatical Terms,” Jewish Quarterly Review 76 (1985–86) 217–27. Joseph Qimḥi
(see below in text) fled to Provence during the persecutions in southern Spain and
probably met Abraham ibn Ezra in 1160. Abraham ibn Ezra, best known as a biblical
commentator (and the speaker of Browning’s “Rabbi Ben Ezra”), should not be
confused with his contemporary, the poet Moses ibn Ezra (1055–1135), also a
distinguished reader of Biblical Hebrew—see N. Roth, “ ‘Seeing the Bible through a