Special Issue IOSOT 2013 - Books and Journals

D. Pardee / Vetus Testamentum IOSOT (2013) 99-108 105
It has been suggested that ʿôd be repointed as ʿēd in Hab. ii 3:
kî ʿôd ḥāzôn lammôʿēd
wĕyāpēaḥ laqqēṣ
wĕlōʾ yĕkazzēb
“For there is yet a vision (or: the vision is a witness) for a set time,
Even a witness for the end,
One that will not lie”.20
If the suggested emendation is correct, the traditional text is to be explained
as having come about because of 1) the unusual syntax of the nominal clause
(subject following predicate); 2) the imprecise understanding of the archaic
term yāpēaḥ.
With the possible exception of the last verse cited (which requires emendation)
yāpīaḥ/yāpēaḥ always occurs in parallelism with ʿēd and in syntactically
comparable phrases. Given that fact, one might immediately classify it as a
verbal adjective which functions generally as a noun.21 Keeping this tentative,
inductive, conclusion in mind, let us review the question of etymology.
Etymology
Lexicographers from Ibn Janah (11th c.)22 and David Kimḥi (12th c.)23 down to
the present24 have derived Hebrew yp( y)ḥ from p(w)ḥ “to blow”. The problem
was always how to analyze the y-preformative. There are virtually no syntactic
parallels for the analysis of the form as a finite verbal form. Delitzsch cites
(pp. 114-15) Eccl. i 18 wĕyôsîp daʿat yôsîp makʾôb “he who increases knowledge,
increases pain” (an asyndetic construction). If yp( y)ḥ occurred only once or
twice in constructions comparable to the passage in Ecclesiastes, Delitzsch’s
analysis might be acceptable. But we have seen in the preceding section that
20) For the identification of ypḥ with Ugaritic ypḥ “witness” see P. Nober, Biblica 39 (1958),
Elenchus bibliographicus p. 199*, No. 3336; Dahood, Biblica 46 (1965), p. 319. For the reading ʿēd
for ʿôd, see Berger, UF 2 (1970), p. 16.
21) ʿēd = Qal stative participle, cf. mēt : mētê :: ʿēd : ʿēdê; it functions as a noun, taking genitive,
rather than accusative complements.
22) A. Neubauer (ed.), The Book of Hebrew Roots (Oxford, 1875; reprinted in Amsterdam, 1968),
p. 565.
23) J. H. R. Biesenthal, F. Lebrecht (ed.), Radicum liber (Berlin, 1847), p. 288; cf. Meṣudat Ṣion in
Miqraʾot Gedolot on Prov. vi 19 and Ps. xxvii 12.
24) B. D. B., Gesenius-Buhl, Koehler-Baumgartner 2 , Zorell.