An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

11. םלָ ְענ ֶ ר ָבדּ ָ הָיה־אֹ ָ ל
ךְ ֶל ֶמּ ֫ ה־ן ַ ִמ
12. םי ִעֹר ה ָ םי ִעֹר ה־ל ָ ַע
ימִּ ַע־תאֶ 13.
ךְ֑ לֹה ֵ התָּ א ַ ה ָנ ֫
Nothing was hidden from the king.
1 Kgs 10:3
against the shepherds who tend my people
Jer 23:2
אָ Where are you going?
Zech 2:6
d Does one “meaning” attach to all these functions? A. B. Davidson, representing a
traditional view, claims that the participle denotes linear aspect: “The [participle] or
nomen agentis…presents the person or subj[ect] in the continuous exercise or
exhibition of the action or condition denoted by the verb.” 5 Along the same lines, S.
R. Driver carefully distinguishes this linear aspect from the broken, repetitive aspect
of the nonperfective conjugation: “Mere continuance in the sense of duration without
progress is never expressed by the imp[erfect].…The participle is the form which
indicates continued action.…Thus while the imp[erfect] multiplies an action, the
participle prolongs . 6
e This presentation needs qualifying. One can scarcely speak of the purely substantival
participle (nomen agentis) in terms of action (see 37.2); in this use the qōtēl form
points not so much to an action as to a person. Further, the stative participle functions
as an adjective, connoting a fixed and permanent quality; as M. Greenberg states:
“Stative[Page 614] participles are pure adjectives.” 7 E. Kautzsch claims that the
language is “fully conscious of the difference between a state implying action” and
one not implying it, for quasifientive roots, that is, roots with transitive stative
participles (e.g., א ֵנ ָשׂ ‘to hate’) in contrast to intransitive stative roots (e.g., דבֵ ָכּ ‘to
be heavy’; see 22.2.3), may form a participle not after the stative but after the fientive
pattern; only with this form can such roots denote continued activity. 8 Further,
progressive aspect is not crucial in the participle’s use as a relative. T. O. Lambdin
notes that in this use the participle connotes “completed action”: “In English,
therefore, a relative clause with a perfect or preterite verb is often required in
translation” (37.5). 9 The passive participle, too, tends to describe a situation not
implying progressive activity but resulting from some earlier action. 10 Finally, the
5
A. B. Davidson, Hebrew Syntax (3d ed.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1901) 13.
6
S. R. Driver, A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew (3d ed.; Oxford:
Clarendon, 1892) 35–36.
7
Moshe Greenberg, Introduction to Hebrew (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-
Hall, 1965) 55.
8
GKC §116b / p. 356.
9
T. O. Lambdin, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (New York: Scribner, 1971) 158.
10 BL§361’/ p.278.