Hebrew Syntax Week 1

Hebrew Syntax and Exegesis: Introduction

Welcome to Hebrew 3!

There are several goals that this course will try to achieve:

To help you grow in your skill with Hebrew. We will be examining Hebrew grammar and syntax at the clause and discourse level. We will also be translating quite a bit, engaging in discourse analysis, and textual criticism.

To help you take the original language skills that you have worked so hard to develop and employ them to interpret the OT more effectively for preaching and teaching.

You will learn several methods in this course for interpreting different genres. You will also learn the 12 step process for exegesis outlined in your textbook. All of that will be helpful and will make you a more skilled interpreter so that you will be better equipped to:

2 Timothy 2:15 ESV

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

This is a part of faithful preparation for ministry.

Even though these techniques and steps will be helpful, far more important is your own curiosity about the Old Testament and belief that God has an important message for us in it. “Why” is one of the most important questions you can ask. “Why is this here?” “Why did the author say it like that?” “Why was this detail included at this point in the narrative?” Being driven to answer those kinds of questions will be your best asset to do well in a class like this. At the end of the day it is not about a fancy methodology or a gift for biblical languages, although those things can help, but about a drive to understand Scripture and communicate it effectively.

A word about communicating it effectively: for many of you the main way you will be communicating Scripture will be through a sermon or through teaching. In this course, you will be communicating via an exegetical paper. Do not see this as the kind of project that is disconnected from ministry. Rather it is just another way of communicating the truth of Scripture. For our class, it has the advantage of being far more detailed. Allowing you to talk about historical-cultural background, the syntax and grammar, TC issues, and all sorts of things that you will need to be cognizant of to preach, but they are the kind of details that often do not make it into a sermon.

· Exegesis Step 1: Determine the Genre, Divide up the Passage into Major Units

Exegesis Step 1: Determine the Genre, Divide up the Passage into Major Units

At this point in your seminary career, you should be familiar with the concept of genre. It is critical for OT interpretation. You have some reading on this. I also have recorded a lecture in blackboard that you are required to watch this week. So, with that I will turn to the next part of Step 1 - dividing up your passage into major units.

How you break up a passage into its major units will depend quite a bit on the genre. Prophetic texts are divided by oracles, psalms are divided by stanzas, narrative by pericopes. I am going to use the narrative genre to illustrate this, although you textbook has some examples of other genres.

Macro-Structure

At the highest level, each book has a macro-structure. This kind of structure is sometimes signaled linguistically, like the אֶלֶּה תּוֹלְדוֹת pattern in Genesis (show slide). Side note: your textbook argued that when this formula does not have the conjunction waw, it is a more emphatic break then when it does. Based on that analysis there are 5 major Toledoth sections and 5 minor.

Other times, major book outlines are determined by a change in generation, place, or genre within the text. David Dorsey’s book is really helpful for macro-structure. Any good commentary on a book will have some ideas regarding the macro-structure as well.

Pericope

Within the macro-structure, there are major units of texts. To take an example from Genesis, the 10th Toledot is the one related to Jacob (37:2-50:26). This is all one connected story, the Joseph story. You cannot really understand any part of the Joseph story apart from the whole. However, you normally would not preach on 13 chapters at once. This major unit is broken down into smaller pericopes. This is normally the unit of text that is preached or taught. The question then is how do we discern pericopes?

Some of this is just common sense and good judgment, but there are also particular things you can look for. I want to illustrate this section with one narrative that is fairly straightforward, the Babel story, and one that is more difficult, the healing of Naaman from .

The Pethuah and the Setumah - The Pethuah is a פ at the end of a paragraph. It stands for “open.” In handwritten manuscripts that would mean the next word had to begin on another line (modern print editions do not follow this). The Setumah is a “closed” paragraph indicated by a ס. Technically it would be a less significant break, but in practice the two are often equivalent. In , there is a פ at 4:44, an ס at 5:19 and 5:27. The next פ is at 6:7. So, you would have to decide if the floating ax head fits into this pericope or not. Also, do you make a pericope break at 5:19 or not?

The only character that stays the same is Elisha

There are some shared vocabulary words between ch. 5 and 6:1-9: Jordan, to dwell, to be prepared to/resolved to (יאל), to walk, to go. Many of these could be coincidental, or it could be that ch. 6 is harking back to ch. 5, but not part of the same pericope.

In , there is a Pethuah at 10:32 and another one at 11:9, thus clarifying that that is a paragraph.

Introductory Formula - These are more common for the beginning of a whole new unit, but often a וַיְהִי clause will introduce a new unit while giving background information (see ), a disjunctive clause waw + noun + qatal, or a wayyiqtol (but there would be some other change to signal a new unit). In it is a waw + noun + qatal pattern. At 5:17 there is not a clear shift, it is a wayyiqtol speech verb. Normally that would be in the same pericope. 6:1 is also a wayyiqtol speech verb, but it is a plural subject. 6:8 has a waw + noun + qatal pattern.

Shifts in time and place - this is fairly self evident. There is no apparent shift in time until . In , it is a new scene, there is a transition from a genealogy to a narrative.

Shifts in character or speaker - There is a shift in speaker in and 6:1.

Concluding formula / Summary statements - 5:27 could be seen as having a kind of concluding quality. clearly has a summary quality to it, beginning with the “therefore” and describing the place name.

So, where should we break the paragraph? With it is fairly easy. With , I would leave it open from 5:1-6:7 and see if there are any other literary connections between the floating axe head story and the Namaan story.

One Logos tool that can also help with this is the Passage Analysis tool.

Clause Hierarchy

The next step is to analyze how each clause relates to the previous through indentation. This is essentially a step of discourse analysis.

The most significant factor is the presence or absence of the waw conjunction. The waw connector identifies a bound relationship between elements of equal syntactic value.

In the narrative genre the wayyiqtol form is the backbone, or the basic unit of text.

Go through genre profile powerpoint.

Demonstrate with

Literary Features

Once you have done this kind of verbal layout, it helps you to see the contours of the text. It is kind of like looking at a map that shows the terrain and elevation. In going through the process of creating it, you will undoubtedly notice literary features of your passage. Things like repeated words, characterization, important speeches, etc… This would be a good time to note some of those kinds of things.

1. Repeated words - this often is one way at getting at the significance of a passage, you can see some of the focus. One way of getting at this information quickly with a longer passage is using the word list feature. With we notice “all,” “land,” “lip/language,” “there,” “Yhwh.”

2. List the characters and how they are described:

a) “they” (11:2) - this is not about a specific people group, but all people. Later described as “sons of men” (v. 5).

b) Yhwh

This a fairly simple story and it is cast in universal terms, because it is about all of humanity. Other stories will be more specific and their characterization more explicit. For example, in and 2, Ruth is often called “the Moabitess.” Actually, let’s look at the characterization of .

a) Elimelech, from Bethlehem of Judah, Ephrathites, “husband of Naomi” (v. 3), “her husband” (v. 5)

b) His wife, Naomi, Mara (v. 20)

c) His sons, Mahlon and Kilion (meaning of names?), “her boys” (yeled, v. 5)

d) Moabite wives, Orpah and Ruth, “her daughters in law” (v. 6, 7, 8), “my daughters” (v. 11, 12, 13), “your sister in law” (to Ruth, v. 15), Ruth the Moabite (v. 22), her daughter in law (v. 22)

e) Yhwh (v. 6)

f) “the two of them” (Ruth and Naomi, v. 19)

Several observations can be made just about this scene. It begins looking like it will be a story about Elimelech. He is named first and Naomi and her sons are all referenced in relation to him (his wife, his sons). But quickly, beginning in v. 3, the focus changes to Naomi. He becomes “her husband” (v. 3, 5). The narrator references “her boys” (v. 5).

Ruth and Orpah are introduced together as Moabite wives, then referenced three times as “her daughters in law.” When they both say they will stick with her, she references them three times as “my daughters.” Finally, in verse 14 “Ruth” is referenced as an individual who speaks on her own. Orpah then becomes “your sister in law.” Finally, in verse 22, Ruth is labelled again as a Moabite, the daughter in law of Naomi. This demonstrates that the story is really about Naomi. Ruth throughout the book will come more into her own identity as the story continues.

Yhwh is referenced as a vital mover, but is not directly involved with any other characters in terms of speaking to them, etc...

3. Analyze the plot: what happens? Are there peaks? Where is there the most tension?

The outer frame talks about how all the earth has one language (v. 1) and how they all gathered in one plain, verse 9 finishes by talking about how Yhwh mixed the languages of all the earth and spread people out. This is essentially a story about how that happened.

The plot is primarily driven by speech - the speech of the people and the speech of God with their consequent actions.

Verse 4 seems to be a climax, where Yhwh decides to go down and see the tower

4. Look for word plays

a) “bake bricks” (נִלְבְּנָ֣ה לְבֵנִ֔ים)

b) “Burn them thoroughly (וְנִשְׂרְפָ֖ה לִשְׂרֵפָ֑ה)

c) “come” of v. 3 and “come” of v. 4 (הבה) vs. the “come” (הבה) of v. 7.

d) The people feared being spread through all the earth, but by the end they themselves were spread throughout all the earth (v. 9) פֶּן־נָפ֖וּץ עַל־פְּנֵ֥י כָל־הָאָֽרֶץ vs. וּמִשָּׁם֙ הֱפִיצָ֣ם יְהוָ֔ה עַל־פְּנֵ֖י כָּל־הָאָֽרֶץ. That is, they thought their actions would keep them together, but it actually split them apart.

e) וְנָבְלָ֥ה “confuse” (v. 7) vs. נִבְנֶה “build” (v. 4)

f) בָּבֶל and בָּלַל (v. 9).

The Lexham Hebrew Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012), .