21st Century Bible Hebrew -- imperfect aspect, examples 2

The uses of imperfect aspect are as follows.

1.                  vav plus imperfect in VS order is “narrative past”, used within an episode to track the progress of the plot.

2.                  vav plus subject plus imperfect is a relative or coordinate clause.

3.                  without vav in SV order is possibly a true future tense usage.

4.                  without vav may also be an imperfect of process; this first turns up in Leviticus and may be a clue to the relationship between imperfect and progressive aspects.

5.                  vav plus imperfect in the 2nd singular or plural define the generalized or definitional envelope of commandments or refer to a known cultural feature.

6.                  in the 3rd person, in portions about sacrificial ritual, imperfect provides the framework for the ritual actions like the generalization envelope for a k’lal u-prat [u-k’lal] structure.

7.                  Preceded by ki or im is the “if” clause in a law, usually a tort. Again, this is an envelope to a klal uprat [uklal] structure.

8.                  part of a parallel structure in poetry and prophecy following a perfect verb as a parallel. They will not use the same verb root and sometimes not the same binyan.

We’re up to #5, commandments.  Imperfect aspect commandments in 2^nd person usually are followed by perfect aspect verbs. It’s part of a rule called klal u-prat, a generalization followed by detail. Legally, it’s the definition of what has to happen for there to be a court case at all, followed by what consequences are actionable in court.

Probably the earliest such commandments in Torah are – not the Big Ten – but the laws of Pesach in Exodus 12 after the plague of darkness. 

ט אַל־תֹּֽאכְל֤וּ מִמֶּ֨נּוּ֙ נָ֔א וּבָשֵׁ֥ל מְבֻשָּׁ֖ל בַּמָּ֑יִם כִּ֣י אִם־צְלִי־אֵ֔שׁ רֹאשׁ֥וֹ עַל־כְּרָעָ֖יו וְעַל־קִרְבּֽוֹ:

י וְלֹא־תוֹתִ֥ירוּ מִמֶּ֖נּוּ עַד־בֹּ֑קֶר וְהַנֹּתָ֥ר מִמֶּ֛נּוּ עַד־בֹּ֖קֶר בָּאֵ֥שׁ תִּשְׂרֹֽפוּ:

יא וְכָ֘כָה֘ תֹּֽאכְל֣וּ אֹתוֹ֒ מָתְנֵיכֶ֣ם חֲגֻרִ֔ים נַֽעֲלֵיכֶם֙ בְּרַגְלֵיכֶ֔ם וּמַקֶּלְכֶ֖ם בְּיֶדְכֶ֑ם וַֽאֲכַלְתֶּ֤ם אֹתוֹ֙ בְּחִפָּז֔וֹן פֶּ֥סַח ה֖וּא לַיהוָֹֽה:

Translation: Don’t eat any of it soaked or cooked in water; but only roasted in fire, its head on its organs and its innards.

Don’t leave any of it until morning; what is left of it in the morning you shall burn with fire.

Thus you eat it: your loins girded up, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hands; eat it in a hurry, it is pesach l’****.

I’ll bring up verses 9 and 10 again when I discuss negation.

Verse 11 may not match how you run your Passover Seder at home, or a communal one you might go to. For example, right in the Haggadah it says that everybody reclines to eat, and that some rabbis stretched the party out until midnight, no matter how early it started (such as early in March when the sun sets sooner). That’s not exactly eating quickly in fear, as the second part of the verse has it.

There are discussions throughout rabbinic literature about which commandments in Exodus 12 applied only in Egypt, and which apply now. This detail (prat) in perfect aspect does not apply now. But the commandments for matso, maror, and finishing by midnight all still apply today.

Use of the imperfect for all the other verbs shows that they are the definition of the Passover observance. For all time. That’s why we still do things this way today.

Exodus 29:38-42 is a long stretch of imperfect commandments which define the tamid offering. It’s one long definition of what the tamid is. There are no perfect aspect verbs in it. If somebody went to court to claim that a priest did the tamid wrong, the court could ask which pratim did the priest violate. The person bringing the case would have no answer. As you read the rest of Torah, when you come to statements of ritual, notice what features if any are expressed in perfect aspect. Those are the only issues an earthly court can try.

And that is how BH grammar is the basis of Jewish law.

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- imperfect aspect examples part 1

The uses of imperfect aspect are as follows.

1.                  vav plus imperfect in VS order is “narrative past”, used within an episode to track the progress of the plot.

2.                  vav plus subject plus imperfect is a relative or coordinate clause.

3.                  without vav in SV order is possibly a true future tense usage.

4.                  without vav may also be an imperfect of process; this first turns up in Leviticus and may be a clue to the relationship between imperfect and progressive aspects.

5.                  vav plus imperfect in the 2nd singular or plural define the generalized or definitional envelope of commandments or refer to a known cultural feature.

6.                  in the 3rd person, in portions about sacrificial ritual, imperfect provides the framework for the ritual actions like the generalization envelope for a k’lal u-prat [u-k’lal] structure.

7.                  Preceded by ki or im is the “if” clause in a law, usually a tort. Again, this is an envelope to a klal uprat [uklal] structure.

8.                  part of a parallel structure in poetry and prophecy following a perfect verb as a parallel. They will not use the same verb root and sometimes not the same binyan.

You’ve had examples of narrative past already but in case you have forgotten where they were, go to Mechon Mamre’s free online copy of Tannakh and go through the first five chapters of Genesis looking for them.

The relative or coordinate clauses (#2) include Genesis 2:5-6 about the difference between the world before man’s creation, and the ordinary world known to the audience of the narrator.

Genesis 4:14 had an example of a future use of imperfect, in Qain’s yahargeni. 

The first time we get an imperfect of process is Leviticus 1:9.

ט וְקִרְבּ֥וֹ וּכְרָעָ֖יו יִרְחַ֣ץ בַּמָּ֑יִם וְהִקְטִ֨יר הַכֹּהֵ֤ן אֶת־הַכֹּל֙ הַמִּזְבֵּ֔חָה עֹלָ֛ה אִשֵּׁ֥ה רֵֽיחַ־נִיח֖וֹחַ לַֽיהוָֹֽה:

Translation: Its innards and organs he washes in water; the kohen makes every thing smoke on the altar, it is an olah, isheh reach nichoach l’****

This verse is part of a paragraph that starts with a bunch of imperfect aspects that define what is happening so that everybody knows where they are as far as the sacrificial ritual. Then later material can just say olah for other offerings that are processed the same way.

Verses 4-8 contain a number of perfect aspect verbs showing what actions have to be completed to perform the ritual acceptably.

Verse 6 says to cut the animal up; at this point the innards and organs can actually be reached, taken out, and washed in water while the other actions, like flaying the carcass, are on-going.

It’s important to know that the basics of the olah sacrifice are covered in Exodus 29. That’s in the middle of the instructions for making the tabernacle. It’s also in the middle of the instructions for the consecration ceremony. Why isn’t this covered in Leviticus?

I have a discussion about that on the Fact-Checking blog. It’s based on something a rabbi said in some audio lectures on Talmud, which I took and ran with. It’s part of Torah being an oral tradition.

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- The complete paradigm from the top

Now it’s time to start all over again and organize things by subject.

First, BH is not a tense language. It is an aspect language, like modern Arabic, Russian, and Chinese as well as ancient Semitic languages.

The aspectual world hinges on expressing repetition, process, or completion, in aspects called imperfec(ive), progressive, or perfect(ive). Russian and Arabic do not have the progressive aspect in morphology; they express the same concept in other ways.

Aspectual languages generally leave out the copula in equational sentences because equation is not one of the above.

Aspectual languages generally have a separate form that is called in when the nuances of the aspects don’t apply to a given context.

In Biblical Hebrew (BH), the uses of imperfect aspect are as follows.

1.                  vav plus imperfect in VS order is “narrative past”, used within an episode to track the progress of the plot.

2.                  vav plus subject plus imperfect is a relative or coordinate clause.

3.                  without vav in SV order is possibly a true future tense usage.

4.                  without vav may also be an imperfect of process; this first turns up in Leviticus and may be a clue to the relationship between imperfect and progressive aspects.

5.                  vav plus imperfect in the 2nd singular or plural define the generalized or definitional envelope of commandments or refer to a known cultural feature.

6.                  in the 3rd person, in portions about sacrificial ritual, imperfect provides the framework for the ritual actions like the generalization envelope for a k’lal u-prat [u-k’lal] structure.

7.                  Preceded by ki or im is the “if” clause in a law, usually a tort. Again, this is an envelope to a klal uprat [uklal] structure.

8.                  part of a parallel structure in poetry and prophecy following a perfect verb as a parallel. They will not use the same verb root and sometimes not the same binyan.

Next week I’ll start giving examples of these usages.

Notice how the focus of the imperfect on action, rather than completion, leads us directly to one of Olrik’s principles. The normal world of an oral narrative is the culture-related actions which the protagonist performs on his way to the denouement. Yes, he has to complete each one of them to progress through the narrative, but it’s the progress that matters, not the completion. This suggests a relationship between narrative past and progressive aspect, although narrative past is the normal verb form in narratives.

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- segolate nouns

All right, let me catch up on something I didn’t discuss before because we haven’t seen an example.

Some nouns and adjectives have the vowel segol in both halves. When they conjugate, they do something even siach doesn’t do. Here’s melekh, “king” for an example.

Absolute	construct	Gender
מֶלֶךְ	מֶלֶךְ	singular
מְלָכִים	מַלְכֵי	masculine

A feminine adjective will be m’lachot in the plural absolute, and malkat in the construct singular.

There’s no adjective melekh that I know of, I’m just saying that when an adjective has segol for both vowels, change the vowels as you see here for the masculine plural, and use the feminine plural endings.

Perach, “flower”, is a special case because not only does it have a segol in the first syllable, it has the –ach ending that siach has. This word is an exception to the –ach nouns being feminine, too. So it’s perach, p’rachim, perach, pirchey. There are no examples of this in Tannakh but like it is pereq, “chapter”, the plural construct of which is pirqey, as in pirqey avot, “chapters of the fathers”, a famous Mishnaic tractate, parts of which are very well known and for which there is a commentary, Avot d’Rabbi Natan. You can read Avot d’Rabbi Natan here:

https://www.sefaria.org/Avot_D'Rabbi_Natan?lang=bi

Don’t choke over the Hebrew having no vowels. There is an English translation under it. Their copy of Pirqey Avot is here.

https://www.sefaria.org/Pirkei_Avot?lang=bi

There are vowels on that one.

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- frequent verbs

Here is a list of the 30 most frequent verb roots in Genesis, sorted from least to most common.  Learn these verbs in all aspects in qal, and learn bo in hifil, BUT learn diber in piel (although the qal does come up from time to time) and you won’t have to use the dictionary nearly so much.  If you have bought Bolozky’s 501 Hebrew Verbs, you can use that; the Biblical Hebrew versions are much like modern Hebrew, which is what the book focuses on, aside from pesky things like modal morphology and narrative past and necessity. 

אהב	Love
חלם	Dream
אסף	Add
עלה	Go up
שים	Place, put, set
קום	Get up
דבר	Speak
ירד	Go down
ידע	Know
מצא	Find
שמע	Hear
מות	Die
ישב	Sit, live
עשה	Do, make
שוב	Return
ילד	Give birth
יצא	Go out
ברך	Bless
אכל	Eat
יגד	Tell
קרא	Call, name, read
ראה	See, look
הלך	Walk, go
לקח	Take, marry, buy
חיה	Live
נתן	Give, put, set in place
בוא	Come, go
היה	Be
אמר	Say

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 6:5-8

And now the cliffhanger.

ה וַיַּ֣רְא יְהֹוָ֔ה כִּ֥י רַבָּ֛ה רָעַ֥ת הָֽאָדָ֖ם בָּאָ֑רֶץ וְכָל־יֵ֨צֶר֙ מַחְשְׁבֹ֣ת לִבּ֔וֹ רַ֥ק רַ֖ע כָּל־הַיּֽוֹם:

ו וַיִּנָּ֣חֶם יְהֹוָ֔ה כִּֽי־עָשָׂ֥ה אֶת־הָֽאָדָ֖ם בָּאָ֑רֶץ וַיִּתְעַצֵּ֖ב אֶל־לִבּֽוֹ:

ז וַיֹּ֣אמֶר יְהֹוָ֗ה אֶמְחֶ֨ה אֶת־הָֽאָדָ֤ם אֲשֶׁר־בָּרָ֨אתִי֙ מֵעַל֙ פְּנֵ֣י הָֽאֲדָמָ֔ה מֵֽאָדָם֙ עַד־בְּהֵמָ֔ה עַד־רֶ֖מֶשׂ וְעַד־ע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם כִּ֥י נִחַ֖מְתִּי כִּ֥י עֲשִׂיתִֽם:

ח וְנֹ֕חַ מָ֥צָא חֵ֖ן בְּעֵינֵ֥י יְהוָֹֽה:

The Lord must have seen that the evil of man was great on earth -- every spirit of the thoughts of his heart were only evil all the time --

For the Lord regretted that He had made man on earth; He kept consulting His heart.

The Lord said I will wipe man out that I created, from the face of the earth, man and domestic animal and even the creeping things and fliers in the sky; for I have regretted that I made them.

But the Lord favored Noach.

Now what are we going to do about this word nacham?

First, remember that Noach’s father said Noach would give respite from working the land, and he used the same root.

Second, nacham has to do with pity and compassion, and that goes with Gd grieving to His heart that what He created, which was good when He created it, has turned out so evil.

The problem is that there’s a dagesh in the nun.  This suggests a suppressed letter, but it’s not the assimilated nun that some peh nun verbs have.  The suppressed letter is probably the tav of a hitpael, and this leads directly to a Mishnah in Pirqey Avot saying how patiently Gd bore with these sinners until He finally had enough.  It parallels the hitpael later in the verse.  It also agrees with the use of hitpael in going back and forth like Chanokh “whom Gd took”.

But in verse 7 we have nichamti, the piel, and as I will show in more detail some lessons from now, piel is used when the same bad consequences are turning up time and again. This is Gd saying “this is the dictionary definition of stupidity, getting bad results from your actions and repeating those actions; it’s time for me to do something about people’s stupidity.”

He’s going to wipe people out, and this is the answer to the presumption of Lemekh I in saying “hey, Qain got 7 generations to be avenged, I’ll get 77 generations before anybody avenges me.” Lemekh I got one generation that we know of. It’s the son of Lemekh II whom Gd favors.

You all know that Noach survives what is coming. And that is the second reason why we are not descended from murderers. Anybody who tells you we are is trying to make you feel bad about yourself. That is psychological abuse and bullying. We now realize that bullying promotes everything from obesity through self-harm to suicide. Kick those bullies to the curb where they belong. 

This is the end of the first aliyah in Torah. There are 54. Use the Fact Checking Resources to find texts and audio for further reading. Or contact me about a copy of Narrating the Torah and we'll work something out.

I am not done. I am going to pull all this grammar together in an organized way instead of in bits and pieces the way I have done up to now.

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 5:32-6:4, lords and N'filim

This is the part you have been waiting for me to work over but, if you have been paying attention, you suspect that it won’t come out the way you thought.

לב וַֽיְהִי־נֹ֕חַ בֶּן־חֲמֵ֥שׁ מֵא֖וֹת שָׁנָ֑ה וַיּ֣וֹלֶד נֹ֔חַ אֶת־שֵׁ֖ם אֶת־חָ֥ם וְאֶת־יָֽפֶת: 

ו  א וַֽיְהִי֙ כִּֽי־הֵחֵ֣ל הָֽאָדָ֔ם לָרֹ֖ב עַל־פְּנֵ֣י הָֽאֲדָמָ֑ה וּבָנ֖וֹת יֻלְּד֥וּ לָהֶֽם:

ב וַיִּרְא֤וּ בְנֵי־הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ אֶת־בְּנ֣וֹת הָֽאָדָ֔ם כִּ֥י טֹבֹ֖ת הֵ֑נָּה וַיִּקְח֤וּ לָהֶם֙ נָשִׁ֔ים מִכֹּ֖ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר בָּחָֽרוּ:

ג וַיֹּ֣אמֶר יְהֹוָ֗ה לֹֽא־יָד֨וֹן רוּחִ֤י בָֽאָדָם֙ לְעֹלָ֔ם בְּשַׁגָּ֖ם ה֣וּא בָשָׂ֑ר וְהָי֣וּ יָמָ֔יו מֵאָ֥ה וְעֶשְׂרִ֖ים שָׁנָֽה:

ד הַנְּפִלִ֞ים הָי֣וּ בָאָ֘רֶץ֘ בַּיָּמִ֣ים הָהֵם֒ וְגַ֣ם אַֽחֲרֵי־כֵ֗ן אֲשֶׁ֨ר יָבֹ֜אוּ בְּנֵ֤י הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ אֶל־בְּנ֣וֹת הָֽאָדָ֔ם וְיָֽלְד֖וּ לָהֶ֑ם הֵ֧מָּה הַגִּבֹּרִ֛ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר מֵֽעוֹלָ֖ם אַנְשֵׁ֥י הַשֵּֽׁם:

Noach must have been 500 years old; Noach sired Shem, Cham and Yefet.

It must have been the beginning of man increasing on the earth; that daughters were born to them.

The sons of lords looked at the daughters of men, because they were good; they took to them wives, of all whom they had chosen.

The Lord said My spirit won’t strive against man forever, in their erring, he is mortal; from now on his years will be 120.

The N’filim were on earth in those days -- and after that time -- when the sons of the lords went to the daughters of men, they bore to them -- those were the mightiest ever, famous men.

Here is why it reads differently from your father’s translation.

First, now you know about the va-y’hi…[narrative past] structure so you know that anything interrupting that is sort of a sidebar.

So the direct line goes from the va-y’hi clause to va-yiru, the narrative past that is the complement.

The yuldu of the daughters is our qual of the important consequences, which is that the b’ney elohim took brides from among them.

“Those among the lords” translates b’ney elohim.  Remember the b’ney brit of Avraham who joined him in following up the armies so as to get back Avraham’s nephew Lot. They were not biological sons of a covenant. They were partners in the covenant. Likewise b’ney ir means everybody who has a residence in a given city.

Second, these men were as mortal as Adam. I addressed that long ago. Torah never calls mortals “gods”, it calls them “lords”. Mosheh is told he will be a lord to Paro; Exodus 22:27 says “don’t curse a lord or a prince among your people.” Anybody who tells you b’ney elohim means sons of gods is committing a fallacy called sampling bias.

Verse 3 falls into two parts. The first part acknowledges human mortality; the second sets its limit at 120 years. What does that mean? Well, you know that the patriarchs lived longer than that (or you will when you read the rest of Torah). Let me suggest that the people whose lives are limited to 120 years are the ones who struggle against Gd, which the patriarchs did not, and hence they lived “to a good old age”.

Now, what are we going to do about the N’filim?  Well, in the interests of not committing sampling bias (again), look at Numbers 13, especially verses 22 and 33; Deuteronomy 2:11, 20-21; Deuteronomy 3:11, Deuteronomy 9:2, and Deuteronomy 14:33.

Numbers 13:33 says that ten of the Israelites in the reconnaissance team claimed they saw the N’filim there and felt like insects compared to them. This is an exaggeration as well as a personal perception, not a physical reality.

The urban legend then jumps to Numbers 13:22 which talks about Sheshai, Talmai, and Achiman, and Deuteronomy 1:28 which says that these three men were “sons of Anaq”, and the rest of the verses in Deuteronomy that call the Anaqim great and mighty. The urban legend assumes that “great” means they were giants. That isn’t true. It means that the kingdom of the Anaqim was famous and that they had the numbers and weapons to defend it, not necessarily that they were bigger than normal humans. Deuteronomy has a verb which has the same root as anaqim; it is used in context with giving animals and other goods to an eved when he has served out his exclusive services contract. Anaq means strength, not individual physical size.

Then the urban  legend jumps to verses in Deuteronomy about great and mighty nations, among whom are the R’faim, and to Deuteronomy 3:11 which says of Og king of Bashan, “last of the R’faim”, that his iron network “bed” was 9 cubits (13.5 feet) long. It assumes that a big bed means a giant man, and then they reason backwards that all the others were also giants.

The problem is that in old times a mitah, (bed), was often the only place in a house that could be used as a seat. Their houses had a floorspace about as big as one room in your house. Even those “shipping container” apartments that people live in now are bigger than a house in ancient times.

So everybody sat on the mitah at dinner time, kind of like in a Greek or Roman dining room. It had to be 9 feet long to have room for the king’s relatives. What’s more, when his council met, they sat on the mitah too. It was more like an Islamic diwan, the seat of justice, than the bed you sleep in. And the diwan gave its name to our “divan”, another word for sofa. Which is also derived from sofia, the seat of wisdom, the seat where judges sat to exercise their wisdom in a court case.

Urban legends, like gossip and fish stories, have a habit of exaggerating things. It gets more attention than the plain unvarnished truth.