THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA A Reconsideration of the Prophetic Perfect in Biblical ...

264 Pages·2016·1.68 MB·English

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

A Reconsideration of the Prophetic Perfect in Biblical Hebrew

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Faculty of the
Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures
School of Arts and Sciences
Of The Catholic University of America
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy

©

Copyright

All Rights Reserved

By

Daniel E. Carver

Washington, D.C.

2017
A Reconsideration of the Prophetic Perfect in Biblical Hebrew
Daniel E. Carver, Ph.D.
Director: Edward M. Cook, Ph.D.
The future time uses of the Suffix Conjugation (SC) in Biblical Hebrew (BH) have
troubled interpreters for over a thousand years. A SC with future time reference was often
labeled a praeteritum propheticum until the 19th century when Ewald developed a new approach
to the BH verbal system (BHVS). Ewald argued that the SC expressed a complete (hence
Perfect) situation, rather than a past time situation as most of his contemporaries believed. Later
in the same century Driver popularized Ewald’s theory and from that time on, these future time
SCs were known as Prophetic Perfects. Although this theory was dominant in the late 19th and
20th century literature, many alternative approaches have arisen. Rogland made an astute
contribution arguing that the so-called Prophetic Perfect is not one category of use, but several.
He used relative tense and other contextual clues to explain some of the alleged Prophetic
Perfects. This dissertation explains the future time uses of the SC that have been inappropriately
conflated with those identified by Rogland as expressing relative past time under the Prophetic
Perfect. After a selective review of the literature over the last thousand years, the stative uses of
the SC are explained and described. A stative expresses a situation with nonprogressive,
continuous imperfective aspect and is unmarked for tense, viewpoint aspect, or mood. It is
argued that the SC is used to express future stative situations. Similarly, it is argued that future
stative situations are also expressed by the SC in the Niphal stem. The SC is also used to express
future time situations with epistemic modality. This irrealis use is indicated by word order
(WO), typically clause-initial WO. It is argued that some are clause-initial while others are
noninitial because the normal WO for irrealis verbs was disrupted by constituent preposing.
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This Dissertation by Daniel E. Carver fulfills the dissertation requirements for the doctoral
degree in Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures approved by Edward M. Cook,
Ph.D., as Director, and by Andrew D. Gross, Ph.D., and Aaron M. Butts, Ph.D., as
Readers.

——————————————————
Edward M. Cook, Ph.D., Director

——————————————————
Andrew D. Gross, Ph.D., Reader

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Aaron M. Butts, Ph.D., Reader

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For Sarah and our sons
Ezra, Boaz, and Zimri

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Contents

Abbreviations .............................................................................................................................. vii
Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................ ix
Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1
§1.0 Introductory Remarks ......................................................................................................... 1
§1.1 Tense ................................................................................................................................... 4
§1.1.1 The Perfect ................................................................................................................... 6
§1.2 Aspect ................................................................................................................................. 7
§1.3 Mood ................................................................................................................................... 9
§1.4 Survey of the Literature on the Prophetic Perfect ............................................................. 11
§1.4.1 Survey of the Literature on the Semantics and Pragmatics of the Prophetic Perfect 12
§1.4.1.1 Descriptions in Early Tense Theories: Grammarians from the Medieval Era to 1827
............................................................................................................................................... 12
§1.4.1.2 Descriptions in Early Relative Tense Theories: Lee, Weir, and Murphy ............... 14
§1.4.1.3 Descriptions in Early Aspectual Theories: Ewald and Driver ................................ 20
§1.4.1.4 Aoristic Approaches: Herder, Sperber, and Hughes ............................................... 29
§1.4.1.5 Revival of the Pragmatic Approach: Joüon, Dempsey, and Joosten ...................... 31
§1.4.1.6 Recent Descriptions from Tense-Based Theories: Bauer, Blake, Blau, Andersen,
Revell, and Rainey ................................................................................................................ 33
§1.4.1.7 Recent Descriptions from Aspectual Theories ....................................................... 39
§1.4.1.7.1 stative VS cursive: Brockelmann, Meyer, Rundgren, and Gibson .................. 40
§1.4.1.7.2 fact VS relative: Michel, Kustar, Fensham, and Furuli ................................... 41
§1.4.1.7.3 perfective VS imperfective: Waltke and O’Connor, Hendel, and Tropper ...... 43
§1.4.1.7.4 Summary .......................................................................................................... 45
§1.4.1.8 Studies on the Prophetic Perfect ............................................................................. 46
§1.4.1.8.1 Pullin ................................................................................................................ 46
§1.4.1.8.2 Rogland ............................................................................................................ 48
§1.4.2 Survey of the Literature on Identifying Prophetic Perfects ....................................... 52
§1.5 Comparative Evidence for the Prophetic Perfect .............................................................. 56
§1.6 The State of the Issue ........................................................................................................ 60
§1.6.1 Previous Advances ..................................................................................................... 60
§1.6.2 Problems to be Resolved ............................................................................................ 62
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§1.7 Thesis and Methodology ................................................................................................... 64
Chapter 2: The Future Stative Uses of the Suffix Conjugation .............................................. 68
§2.0 Introductory Remarks ....................................................................................................... 68
§2.1 The Suffix Conjugation in the Proto-Semitic Verbal System ........................................... 69
§2.1.1 The Morphology of the Suffix Conjugation in Akkadian and Proto-Semitic ............ 70
§2.1.2 The Semantics of the Suffix Conjugation in Akkadian and Proto-Semitic ............... 75
§2.2 The Biblical Hebrew Suffix Conjugation ......................................................................... 78
§2.2.1 The Theme Vowels of the Suffix Conjugation .......................................................... 79
§2.2.2 The Semantics of the Suffix Conjugation in Biblical Hebrew .................................. 81
§2.2.2.1 The Anterior Path ................................................................................................ 81
§2.2.2.2 Stativity and the Biblical Hebrew Suffix Conjugation ....................................... 83
§2.2.2.3 Stativity and Future Time ................................................................................... 91
§2.2.2.4 Future Statives in the Suffix Conjugation ........................................................... 94
§2.2.2.4.1 Examples Suggested by Rainey ................................................................... 96
§2.2.2.4.2 Other Examples .......................................................................................... 103
§2.2.3 The Niphal, Stativity, and Passivity ......................................................................... 108
§2.2.3.1 The Functions of the Niphal ............................................................................. 108
§2.2.3.2 The Semantics of the Niphal in the Suffix Conjugation ................................... 112
§2.2.3.3 Resultative Niphal in the Suffix Conjugation ................................................... 115
§2.2.3.4 Future Time Uses of the Resultative Niphal in the Suffix Conjugation ........... 118
§2.2.3.5 Niphal Passives in the Suffix Conjugation ....................................................... 128
§2.2.3.5.1 The Niphal and the Passive Voice ............................................................. 128
§2.2.3.5.2 The Semantics of Niphal Passives in the Suffix Conjugation ................... 130
§2.2.3.5.3 Future Time Uses of the Passive Niphal in the Suffix Conjugation .......... 132
§2.3 Conclusions ..................................................................................................................... 140
Chapter 3: The Irrealis Uses of the Suffix Conjugation ........................................................ 142
§3.0 Introductory Remarks ..................................................................................................... 142
§3.1 The Suffix Conjugation, Modality, and the So-Called Weqatal ..................................... 142
§3.1.1 The Origins and Development of the Modal Use of the Suffix Conjugation .......... 147
§3.1.2 Word Order in Irrealis Verbal Clauses .................................................................... 153
§3.1.2.1 Word Order in Verbal Clauses .......................................................................... 156
§3.1.2.2 Diachronic Development of System of Word Order ........................................ 161
§3.1.3 Conclusions Regarding the Irrealis Suffix Conjugation .......................................... 166
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§3.2 The Irrealis Suffix Conjugation and the Prophetic Perfect ............................................. 166
§3.2.1 Clause-initial with Subject Following ..................................................................... 171
§3.2.2 Following a Clausal Adverb .................................................................................... 177
§3.2.3 Pragmatically Ordered Constituents ........................................................................ 188
§3.2.3.1 With Preposed Constituents .............................................................................. 189
§3.2.3.2 Preposing for Parallelism .................................................................................. 195
§3.2.4 Other Examples ........................................................................................................ 206
§3.2.4.1 Mixed Examples ............................................................................................... 207
§3.2.4.2 Textually Uncertain Potential Examples .......................................................... 222
§3.3 Conclusions ..................................................................................................................... 225
Chapter 4: Conclusions and Implications .............................................................................. 227
Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 231

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Abbreviations

Grammatical and Syntactic Abbreviations
E Event
LPC Long prefix conjugation
NP Noun phrase
PP Prepositional phrase
RT Reference time
SC Suffix conjugation
SOV Subject-object-verb
SPC Short prefix conjugation
ST Speech time
SVO Subject-verb-object
TAM Tense, aspect, and mood
T/A/M Tense, aspect, or mood
VS Verbal system
VSO Verb-subject-object
WO Word order

Dialect and Language Abbreviations
BA Biblical Aramaic
BH Biblical Hebrew
CS Central Semitic
ES East Semitic
IA Imperial Aramaic
NA Neo-Assyrian
NWS Northwest Semitic
OA Old Aramaic
OAkk Old Akkadian
OB Old Babylonian
PS Proto-Semitic
QH Qumran Hebrew
WPA Western peripheral Akkadian
WS West Semitic

Bible Translation Abbreviations
ESV English Standard Version
HCSB Holman Christian Standard Bible
KJV King James Version
LXX Septuagint
NAB New American Bible
NASB New American Standard Bible
NIV New International Version
NKJV New King James Version
NRSV New Revised Standard Version
OTAT The Old Testament: An American Translation
RSV Revised Standard Version

Other Abbreviations
(see bibliography for full bibliographical information)
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BDB Brown, Driver, & Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament
BHS Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia
DCH Clines, The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew
GKC Gesenius, Kautzsch, & Cowley, Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar
HALOT Koehler, Baumgartner, Richardson, & Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon
of the Old Testament
TAD Porten & Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt

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Acknowledgments

It is my privilege and honor to recognize some of the many people who without their
influence and encouragement this dissertation would never have come to fruition. Thanks be to
God that this has been possible! First, I must express my deep gratitude for my parents, Dale and
Dolores Carver. They have consistently given me the support, encouragement, and advice that I
have needed to make it through my years of undergraduate and graduate studies. They have
truly been an inspiration to me. It is an honor to have them as my parents and to consider each of
them a mentor and a friend.
During my undergraduate and graduate studies at Lancaster Bible College, the faculty
went immeasurably beyond the call the duty to foster in me a love for the Bible and for Biblical
Hebrew to which my father had first introduced me at the age of twelve. My Hebrew professors,
Bob Spender and John Soden, and my Greek professor, Harold Kime, are to be praised for not
only bending over backwards to help me learn and grow, but also for doing it seemingly with
joy. I am very thankful for them and their influence on me, as scholars and as men. I also thank
Daniel Spanjer for his friendship and for spurring me on to scholarship. It is now my honor,
since my hire as Assistant Professor in the Bible and Theology department at Lancaster Bible
College, to know these men as colleagues.
The department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literature at The Catholic
University of America has in many ways become like home to me. The faculty and staff have
set a high bar for academic excellence yet with a welcoming spirit of comradery. I would like to
express my gratitude to my advisor, Edward Cook, who, from his extensive knowledge of
linguistics and Semitic philology, gave me a framework for analyzing and categorizing verb
forms and their uses. Over the past five years, he has graciously guided me through the very
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