An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

494]
1.
הז ֶ וּנ ְב ַשׁ ֫ התָּ ַע־י ִכּ
׃םִימ ָ֫
ֲע ַפ
2. אֹ ל םתוֹא ָ םתִי ֶ חֲ ה ַ וּל
׃ם ֶכתְ א ֶ יתִּ ְגר֫ ַהָ
3. וּנתי ֵ֫
מִ הֲ ַל הוהי ץפֵ ח ָ וּל
ה ָלֹע וּנדָיּ ֵ֫ מ ִ חקַ ָל־אֹ ל
4. דחַ א ַ ב ַכ ָשׁ ט ַע ְמ ִכּ
ךָתֶּ ֫ ְשׁ א־ת ִ א ֶ ם ָעהָ 5.
םִיר֫ ַ ְצ ִמ ץרֶ א֫ ֶ ְבּ וּנתְ ֫
returned twice.
Gen 43:10
If you had spared their lives, I would not kill you.
Judg 8:19
If YHWH had meant to kill us, he would not have
accepted from our hands a burnt offering.
Judg 13:23
One of the people easily might have slept with your
wife.
Gen 26:10
ַמ־וּל If only we had died in Egypt!
Num 14:2
c A distinctive use of the irreal perfective is the precative perfective or perfective of
prayer. In contrast to the use of the perfective form for situations which the speaker
expresses as a wish without expectation of fulfillment, the perfective can be used with
reference to situations the speaker prays for and expects to be realized. This use of the
perfective form can be recognized by the presence of other unambiguous forms in the
context signifying a volitional mood. 21 As Moses Buttenwieser has noted, this use of
the perfective was recognized over a century ago by Heinrich Ewald and F. Böttcher.
Such a use is known in several of the cognate Semitic languages: in Aramaic, Arabic,
and Ugaritic. 22 According to H. L. Ginsberg, “one of the original functions of the
perfect was that of an optative and precative.” 23 S. R. Driver cautioned against basing
the case for this Hebrew use on the Arabic evidence because in Arabic the form in
question all but universally stands first in the sentence; for this reason he ruled out the
possibility that the suffix conjugation could be used in Hebrew as a precative. 24 But
far more significant than the Arabic word order is the fact that Arabic uses the form in
connection with the volitional mood.
d The precative perfective can be recognized contextually; Buttenwieser set forth the
conditions: “The precative perfect proper…is invariably found alternating with the
21
This discussion follows Moses Buttenwieser, The Psalms: Chronologically Treated
with a New Translation (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1938) 18–25.
22
See Buttenwieser, Psalms, 21–23; UT §13.28. In Inscriptional Hebrew, note the
precative perfective in M. O’Connor, “The Poetic Inscription from Khirbet el-Qôm,”
Vetus Testamentum 37 (1987) 224–30.
23
H. L. Ginsberg, “The Rebellion and Death of Ba˓lu,” Orientalia 5 (1936) 161–98, at
177.
24
Driver, Tenses in Hebrew, 25–26; so also GKC §106n n.2/ p.312.