An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

others are relegated to the lexicon. 63 The group is not itself a strict unity, but these
adverbs are best considered together.
b The disjuncts are those adverbs which modify a clause in relation to the act of
speaking. 64 Hebrew has few disjuncts, all rare. English has a great many disjuncts, in
contrast, and they are used frequently and imprecisely in rendering Hebrew; for this
reason, the category deserves some extra attention. English disjunct adverbs convey
the speaker’s attitude toward the form of the utterance (‘truly, truthfully, roughly’) or
its content (‘definitely, indeed, surely, plainly, actually, really’). Both types are
regularly used to render the whole range of Hebrew emphatic adverbs, especially
when a given form has no other English correspondent. It is important to note this
disparity between English and Hebrew, so that translational practice does not obscure
grammatical fact. The two Hebrew disjuncts referring to form are ה ָנ ְמ א, ָ and ם ָנ ְמ אָ
65 66 (ם ָנ ְמ א ֻ in polar questions with ה), ‘verily, truly’ (## 1–3). The two that refer to
content are י ַלוּא ‘perhaps’ (## 4–5) and ט ַע ְמ ‘a little, somewhat’ (# 6). 67
יתא ִ ט֫ ָ ח ָ י ִכֹנ א ָ ה ָנ ְמ ָ
1.
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663]
2.
3.
וּביר֫ ִהֱ
ה ֶ הוהי ֑ ם ָנ ְמ אָ
רוּשּׁא ַ י ֵכל ְ ַמ
תוֹצרָ אֲ ה־ל ָ ָכּ־תאֶ א In truth (I tell you that) I have sinned.
Josh 7:20
Of a truth, (I tell you,) YHWH, (that) the Assyrian
kings have wasted all the lands. 68
Isa 37:18
י֑ לָּ ִמ רקֶ ֶשׁ־אֹ ֫ ל ם ָנ ְמ א־י ָ ִכּ Truly (I claim that) my words are not lies.
4. י ַלוּא יתִ חָ ְפ ִשׁ־לא ֶ אנ־אֹ ָ בּ
ה ָנּמּ֑ ִ֫
ִמ ה ֶנ ָבּאִ Job 36:4
Go to my maid. Perhaps I shall be built up from her.
63
And the lexicons usually do a wonderful job with them. We leave out of account
here a variety of emphatics much discussed in recent scholarly literature. On the
emphatic l, see Muraoka, Emphatic Words, 113–23, whose findings are largely
negative. Contrast, e.g., J. A. Soggin, Old Testament and Oriental Studies (Rome:
Biblical Institute, 1975) 219–24.
64
The term is from Quirk et al., Contemporary English, 507. They could also be
called “metapropositional” adverbs in that they comment on how the proposition is to
be understood. Blau refers to “sentence adverbials denoting judgement on the rest of
the sentence,” which “may be considered logical predicates”; see Adverbial
Construction, 15.
65
Again, we have the -ām adverbial ending. On ˒omnām kî, see Blau, Adverbial
Construction, 26.
66
In, e.g., Gen 18:13.
67
Blau (Adverbial Construction, 30) notes also kim˓aṭ ṣe- ‘hardly’ in Cant 3:4. The
understanding of these disjunct adverbs depends in part on the understanding of the
associated action, in particular whether, say, ‘worshipt is a scalar phenomenon.
68
Cf. the synoptic verse, 2 Kgs 19:17.