An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

3. ירִ ְמ ַצ ימי ַ מוּ ֵ ימִ חְ ַל ינֵ תֹנ ְ
׃י ָיוּקּ ִשׁ ו ְ ינִ ְמ ַשׁ יתִּ ְשׁ פוּ ִ
4. זחָ א ָ םתוֹי ָ הָיּזִּ ֻע ימי ֵ בִּ
הדוּהְי ֑ ָ י ֵכל ְ ַמ הָיּ ִק זְ חְי ִ
Hos 2:13
those who give my bread and my water, my wool and
my flax, my oil and my drink 4
Hos 2:7
in the time of Uzziah-Jotham-Ahaz-Hezekiah, kings of
Judah
Hos 1:1
After a clausal negative, waw with a noun often has an alternative force (# 5); as
with the operation of simple conjoining, the operation of specifying alternatives can
be either phrasal or clausal. The sense of # 5 is ‘I will not save by the bow and (I will)
not (save) by the sword,’ etc. Normally a noun phrase specifying or glossing another
noun phrase stands juxtaposed to it in apposition (12.1), but sometimes waw
intervenes (# 6). In some[Page 649] cases this explicative waw occurs on a nonappositional
part of a clause; in such cases it may be called emphatic waw (# 7). 5
Phrasal waw pointed as wā indicates a close bond between the parts of the phrase (#
8). 6
5. ת ֶשׁ קֶ֫ בּ ְ ם ֵעי ִשׁוֹא אֹ לוְ ה ָמ חָ ְל ִמ ְבוּ ברֶ חֶ֫ ְבוּ
׃םי ִשׁ רָ ָפבוּ ְ םיסוּס ִ בּ ְ
6. י ִל ְכבּ ִ םתֹא ָ ם ֶשׂ ָיּ֫ וַ
וֹל־ר ֶשׁ א ֲ םי ִעֹר הָ
טוּק ְלַיּ בוּ ַ
7. ם ֶכינֵ חֲ ַמ שֹׁא ְבּ ה ֶל ֲעאַ וָ
ם ֶכ ְפּאַ ְבוּ
8.
ד ֶכ ֶנ֫ ו ָ ןינִ ְ
I will not save them by bow or by sword or by battle, by
horses or charioteers.
Hos 1:7
He put them in the shepherds’ vessel he had, that is, in
the pouch.
1 Sam 17:40
I will make the stench of your camp ascend even into
your nostrils.
Amos 4:10
ו and offspring and descendant (or, kith and kin)
Isa 14:22
4
This passage is in verse, and the genitive nouns are in pairs, though these facts do not
in themselves explain the patterning of w.
5
See D. W. Baker, “Further Examples of the Waw Explicativam,” Vetus Testamentum
30 (1980) 129–36. Note the conjoint hendiadys gēr wətôšāb ‘(resident alien or
temporary alien =) alien’ and the juxtaposed hendiadys gēr tôšāb ‘alien’ (bosh in Lev
25:47; the first also occurs in Gen 23:4, Lev 23:35).
6
Usually but not always nouns; see E. J. Revell, “Nesiga and the History of the
Masorah,” Estudios masoreticos…dedicados a Harry M. Orlinsky, ed. E. Fernández
Tejero (Madrid: Instituto “Arias Montano,” 1983) 37–48, at 38.