An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

2a.
2b. ם ֶכתְ א ֶ יתִּ ֫ ְל ַצּהִ וְ
םת֑ ָ דֹב ָ ֲע ֵמ
ויפּ֑ ִ ִמ יתִּ לְ ַצּ֫ הִ וְ And I rescued (the sheep) from its mouth.
1 Sam 17:35
And I will rescue you from being slaves to them.
Exod 6:6
S. R. Driver compared this contrast through stress with similar phenomena in
English and German.
Exactly, therefore, as in English and German, we do not stultify ourselves by reading
con’vict, inva’lid, pre’sent, geb’et (give!), where the context demands convict’, in’valid’,
present’, gebet’ (prayer), so in Hebrew we must beware of saying wəqaṭálta when grammar
and logic call for wəqáṭaltá. 2
Many forms of the suffix conjugation, however, always bear the accent on the last
syllable (i.e., milra˓): for example, וּל֫ טְ ק, ָ םתֶּ ֫ רְ ַמ א, ֲ וּע֫ ר ָ (from הער), התָ ֫ ָשׁ, etc.,
and with such, no change is possible.
c Even with the remaining forms (1 c.s. and 2 m.s.) there are many exceptions. The
source of variation is semantic rather than strictly syntactic. “It is,” as E. J. Revell
notes, “often not possible to provide a precise, objective description of the
conditioning of the[Page 521] variations.” For the most part these exceptions can be
grouped into three categories. The stress is usually not thrown forward with wawrelative
when (1) the suffix conjugation is followed immediately by a stressed syllable
in the succeeding word (this phenomenon is known as nesiga or nasog ˒aḥor), (2) the
penult is an open syllable, or (3) the word is in pause. 3 We can illustrate the first two
points.
3. . . . י ִל־אטָ חֱ ת ֶ י ִכּ ץרֶ א֫
ֶ
. . . ידָי ִ יתי ִ ט֫ ִ נָ וְ
If a country sins against me…and I stretch out my
hand…and I break its food supply…and I cut off from
2 S. R. Driver, A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew (3d ed.; Oxford:
Clarendon, 1892) 115–16. The consonantal forms of (a) w + infinitive absolute and
(b) w + third-person masculine singular perfective may be identical, and there may be
cases in which the forms have been confused in the MT (b read as a, the less frequent
combination, is likely to be more common). See J. Huesman, “The Infinitive Absolute
and the Waw + Perfect Problem,” Biblica 37 (1956) 410–34.
c. common
3 See Driver, Tenses in Hebrew, 122–23, for a fuller account; cf. E. J. Revell, “Stress
and the Waw ‘Consecutive’ in Biblical Hebrew,” Journal of the American Oriental
Society 104 (1984) 437–44, esp. 439–40; and especially Revell, “The Conditioning of
Stress Position in Waw Consecutive Perfect Forms in Biblical Hebrew,” Hebrew
Annual Review 9 (1985) 277–300, quotation at 280. Revell proposes that “stress
position in perfect forms with waw consecutive is…conditioned by the intonation
patterns characteristic of the speech units” (p. 299). Qoheleth is exceptional for the
wqtl form: there, even when the stress shifts in the w e qataltí forms, the value is simple
(copulative) waw with perfective aspect. On the first category above, see Revell,
“Stress Position in Waw Consecutive,” 279.