An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

[Page 501] f (6) The prose passages in which the unbound prefix form signifies a
preterite are not without difficulties. The form in # 1 is the long form, not the short
form the theory predicts. Such passages may, however, be conditioned in some nonobvious
way or may simply be exceptional. 12 The few passages with an unexpected
prefix conjugation in prose cannot override the overwhelming evidence in the
opposite direction. S. R. Driver thought that some of them were frequentative and
Bergsträsser that some were used as a historical present for vivid description of the
event. 13 Leslie McFall rightly calls for an examination of the 775 simple yqtl forms
used of past events. 14 (7) The use of the long prefix forms of weak verbs with a
preterite value after זא, םרט and םרטבּ is syntactically conditioned and cannot be
used as evidence for the same use in other situations. (8) McFall notes that the short
prefix form is not consistently used with relative waw and that both the long and short
form may have the same sense. He cites as an example a partially duplicated phrase in
Jeremiah, םיאִ ִשׂ נ ְ ה ֶל ֲעַיּ ו ַ (10:13) and ם יאשׂנ ל ַע ַיּ֫ וַ
(51:16), ‘and he makes the mist
rise,’ as showing that the “shortening is not due to the prefixed וּ, but to style, or
variety, or some other such reason.” 15 To be sure, the long form of a weak verb can be
used as a jussive (e.g., tr˒h in Gen 1:9; cf. Chap. 34.4), yet no one denies that the
jussive and the non-perfective can be distinguished.
g Whether or not the prefix conjugation (as a whole, apart from the yaqtul/yaqtulu
distinction) can serve as a preterite, especially in its unbound form in Hebrew poetry,
cannot be decided beyond reasonable doubt at present. Two factors complicate the
discussion and prevent us from coming to a decisive answer. First, since the Hebrew
conjugations do not simply represent absolute time but the speaker’s subjective
representation of a state or an event, the interpretation of the forms is also subjective.
It is instructive to note, for example, that whereas Held thinks the two forms of
differing conjugations in Ps 93:3 both signify preterite action, Fensham thinks that
both signify habitual activity. 16 Second, etymology and usage are related in complex
ways. While the comparative-historical evidence favors the view that earlier yaqtul,
which signified preterite action, survived in Hebrew wayyqtl, in actual usage the
bound form seems to have taken on the values of the suffix conjugation, including
those involving other time periods. In short, it lost its original value in the bound form
to take on new values, and we may suppose that the same may have happened in the
case of the unbound form.
12
C. Brockelmann, Hebräische Syntax (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1956) 44.
13
Driver, Tenses in Hebrew, 31; GB 2. 39 (§9a).
14
L. McFall, The Engima of the Hebrew Verbal System (Sheffield: Almond, 1982)
54–55.
15
McFall, Hebrew Verbal System, 55.
16
Fensham, “Suffix Conjugation,” 16. Such disparate views are not infrequent.