&c. (so Ju 19, 2 S 20), with a frequentative perfect consecutive. The perfect consecutive is very frequently used to announce future actions or events after simple expressions of time of any kind; thus Gn 3, Ex 32 (after בְּיוֹם with the infinitive), cf. also such examples as Gn 44, Ju 16, Jos 6, 1 S 1, 16 (numerous frequentative perfects consecutive after the infinitive with a preposition; so 2 S 15, see above, ee); 1 S 20, 2 S 14, 15, Is 18; moreover, Ex 17, Is 10, 29, 37; even after single disconnected words, e.g. Ex 16 עֶ֫רֶב וִֽידַעְתֶּם at even (when it becomes evening) then ye shall know; cf. verse 7, Lv 7, 1 K 13, Pr 24.
[pp] 6. Finally there still remains a number of passages which cannot be classed with any of those hitherto mentioned. Of these, some are due to the influence of Aramaic modes of expression, while in others the text is evidently corrupt.[1] In a few instances we can do no more than merely call attention to the incorrectness of the expression. (We are not of course concerned here with the cases—usually occurring in dependent clauses—in which a 2nd pers. perf. with Wāw copulative is simply co-ordinate with what precedes, as in Gn 28, and probably Nu 21, Dt 33.)
(a) The influence of the Aramaic construction of the perfect with וְ as the narrative tense, instead of the Hebrew imperfect consecutive (cf. Kautzsch, Gramm. des Bibl.-Aram., § 71 b), is certainly to be traced in Qoheleth, and sporadically in other very late books,[2] perhaps also in a few passages in the hooks of Kings, which are open to the suspicion of being due to later interpolation; so probably 1 K 12 וְהֶֽעֱמִידִ; 2 K 11 Keth. וראתה; 14:14 וְלָקַח (in the parallel passage, 2 Ch 25, the word is wanting); 2 K 23 וְנַשָׂא, &c.; verse 10 וְטִמֵּא, &c.; verse 12 וְהִשְׁלִיךְ, &c.; verse 15 וְשָׂרַף, &c.[3] Cf. also Ez 37, 7, 10.
[qq] (b) The text is certainly corrupt in Is 40 (read with the LXX and Vulgate
- ↑ Mayer Lambert, REJ. xxvi. 55, is probably right in pointing some of these forms as infin. abs. instead of perfects.
- ↑ In the whole of Qoheleth the imperfect consecutive occurs only in 1 and 4. Several of the perfects with וְ can no doubt be explained as frequentatives, e.g. 1, 2, 5:18, compared with 6; but this is impossible in such passages as 9 ff. In Ezra, Driver reckons only six examples of the historical perfect with וְ, in Nehemiah only six, and in Esther six or seven.
- ↑ Stade in ZAW. v. 291 ff. and in Ausgeäwhlte akad. Reden, Giessen, 1899, p. 194 ff. and appendix p. 199, discusses, in connexion with 2 K 12, a number of critically questionable perfects with וְ. He considers that the whole section, 2 K 23 from וְנָשָׂא to verse 5 inclusive, is to be regarded as a gloss, since the continuation of an imperfect consecutive by means of a perfect with וְ never occurs in pre-exilic documents, except in places where it is due to corruption of the original text. The theory of frequentative perfects consecutive (even immediately after imperfects consecutive), which has been supported above, under f and g, by a large number of examples, is quite inconsistent with the character of the action in 2 K 23 וְהִשְׁבִּית, verse 8 וְנָתָץ, and verse 14 וְשִׁבַּר.
