Linguistic Markers of Polar Interrogatives in Biblical Hebrew
Hebrew Studies, 2015
What marks a yes/no question as a question in biblical Hebrew? In the vast majority of cases, the... more What marks a yes/no question as a question in biblical Hebrew? In the vast majority of cases, the answer to this question is the ה־ interrogative. However, there are several clear cases of polar interrogatives without clause initial ה־ that must have some other linguistic marker of interrogative modality. The present article examines possible syntactic and prosodic markers in these clauses and compares their grammatical features with polar interrogatives in the book of Genesis that have the ה־ interrogative. After establishing the grammatical patterns of polar interrogatives with prefixed ה־, I examine the cases without interrogative ה־ and argue that while shifts in word order do not correspond to the ways in which polar interrogatives are marked, prosodic shifts in intonation—largely inaccessible to modern readers—must have produced the interrogative sense. This raises the issue of whether some clauses that are typically understood as declaratives might be construed as questions when the context allows for both possibilities. I also find that although syntactic shifts do not produce interrogatives, word order does relate to the focus of questions, indicating the questioned topic.
Biblical Theology of Life in the Old Testament, 2021
where he taught Old Testament and Biblical Archaeology. His main fields of scholarly interest inc... more where he taught Old Testament and Biblical Archaeology. His main fields of scholarly interest include the history of Israelite religion, archaeology of Iron Age Israel and the pre-exilic prophets. He retired during 2020 and is currently a full-time minister.
The relationship between speech and a person's identification as righteous or wicked is a recurre... more The relationship between speech and a person's identification as righteous or wicked is a recurrent topic in the Joban dialogue. The objective of this article is to demonstrate how Job and his friends link Job's protest to his potential or realized condemnation. The multiple evaluations of Job's speech by the friends and Job himself reveal a development within the dialogue. The friends move from consolatory rebuke toward condemnation and blatant accusation not on the basis of secret sin that Job committed prior to his calamity but because of his words in chapter 3 and following. Job knows the rashness of his words, but he decidedly speaks them anyway, eschewing caution and proceeding with his accusation against God. Paradoxically, it is by means of his supposed self-condemnatory speech that Job moves from hope for death to hope for vindication. YHWH also evaluates Job's words, assessing them as both ignorant (38:2) and right (42:7), thus rejecting the dialogue's assumed retributive relationship between accusatory protest and condemnation. Is Job among the righteous? It may seem that he is obviously so, but not all interpreters agree. Raba (R. Abba b. Joseph b. Ḥ ama [d. 352]) presents a prime example of skepticism toward the blamelessness of Job. Commenting on Job 2:10, "In all this Job did not sin with his lips, " Raba says, "With his lips he did not sin, but with his heart he sinned" (b. B. Bat. 16a). Then in a flash of self-contradiction, he continues with "What did he say?" and quotes Job's accusation in 9:24, "The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He [God] covers the faces of its judges. If it is not he, then who is it?" Thus, Raba supports his conclusion that Job sinned in his heart with evidence from Job's words, particularly Job's claim that God lets chaos overrun justice and cosmological order. Ironically, Raba implies that Job really does sin with his lips, an assertion that closely coheres with the argument of
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