Additional Details
An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax is organized like a reference grammar, with all the discussion about each feature of the language brought together in one spot, but is also designed to be used as a teaching grammar, with instructions for classroom use. This makes it an ideal resource for anyone working with Hebrew, whatever their level of proficiency.
A classic in its own right, this textbook has rapidly become the standard, required text for many second-year students of Hebrew. It has also been revised a number of times as it's been tested and refined in the classroom setting. Waltke and O'Connor take the reader by the hand and walk him through the foundational and finer points of Hebrew grammar in 40 chapters. We're particularly pleased to offer this title to our users, as it fits our corporate commitment to help people take their Bible study to the next level.
Who Needs This Book
For seminary students, this title is a must-have (required, in many cases). But it's also a perfect addition for many of our users who are teaching themselves biblical languages (or refreshing their memory). It breaks the material into bite-sized chunks and includes many helpful examples. What is more, extensive footnotes throughout the book and an Authorities Index introduce the student to a much larger bibliography of specialized and advanced studies in Hebrew, giving many avenues for further exploration of Hebrew syntax.
The publisher says this about the book: "Meeting the need for a textbook for classroom use after first-year Hebrew grammar, Waltke and O'Connor integrate the results of modern linguistic study of Hebrew and years of experience teaching the subject in this book. In addition to functioning as a teaching grammar, this work will also be widely used for reference and self-guided instruction in Hebrew beyond the first formal year. Extensive discussion and explanation of grammatical points help to sort out points blurred in introductory books. More than 3,500 Biblical Hebrew examples illustrate the points of grammar under discussion."
What's Unique About the Libronix Edition
Many modern Hebrew grammars, graded readers, and other reference works are keyed to Walkte and O'Connor's Syntax for easy reference, and the inclusion of the title in the Libronix Digital Library System allows for hyper-linking between other Hebrew language resources and Syntax. Likewise, references in the Libronix edition of the Syntax hyperlink to other advanced grammars currently available, such as Gesenius, Kautzsch and Cowley's Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar.
The print edition includes an index of authorities, listing "various authors and works cited, either in defense of particular linguistic/grammatical theories and points, or as evidence of particular grammatical constructions." The Libronix edition includes hyperlinks to the pages where each of these citations occurs in the text.
The book's topical index has been converted to article topics for easy searching or browsing using the Topic Browser feature of Libronix DLS.
Biblical references and Hebrew words given as examples have been tagged as datatypes, for easy searching. This greatly multiplies the usefulness of the book. For example, a collection of grammars (Gesenius, BHRG, and Syntax) can be included in Passage Guide. Then whenever you run Passage Guide, it will locate every instance one of the grammars cites a verse from your passage as an example of a grammatical structure.
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More information on this resource and others like it can be found in the Product Guide for Hebrew Texts and Tools
Preface to the Print Edition
The Scope and Purpose of This Book
An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax is in two senses an intermediary grammar of the language of the Hebrew Bible. It is, first of all, a grammar designed for study by those who have mastered the fundamentals of the language and possess a good grasp of its phonology and morphology as well as a working vocabulary. Second, it is an intermediary between basic study and the vast array of research literature, a tool to prepare readers to take up that body of writing as they take up the great and difficult corpus of ancient Hebrew scriptures. This volume is presented both as a textbook and as a work of reference and study. There exists in English no up-to-date intermediate or advanced grammar of Biblical Hebrew and the lack has long been recognized. We have attempted to present both a body of knowledge (providing, as it were, the “right answers”) and a sample of analytical and descriptive approaches (suggesting the “right questions”). Introductory Hebrew grammar is largely a matter of morphology, and the word-class or part-of-speech approach we have taken up should follow from such an introductory program. Word-class theory has a respectable antiquity and, as a result of recent research on the organization of the lexicon, a brightening future. The framework is, we hope, conservative enough to be broadly accessible but serious enough to allow us to escape some of the confusions of earlier grammars of Hebrew. New terminology has been introduced cautiously.
Reference grammars are available; every advanced student of the Hebrew text needs to have at hand the grammar of Gesenius, Kautzsch, and Cowley to check a variety of details in an ample and well-informed framework. This volume does not seek to replace GKC or comparable works available in other languages. We do not take account of every exception and anomaly. The book rather seeks to be used both before and alongside such works, pointing to the explorations of more recent generations of scholars, both in detail and in the structure of the overall framework and reconsidering the views of the older works in light of those explorations.
As a teaching grammar, this volume seeks not merely to describe the syntax of Biblical Hebrew, but to provide some explanatory depth to the description. Students emerge from an introductory course in Hebrew ready to begin to confront the text, and this volume stands among the books that can help them. Among these books, it will have, we hope, a distinctive place. Reference grammars and advanced lexicons, if consulted on the fly, tend to fragment a reader’s view of problems, while commentaries tend to narrow the focus too closely. Specialized grammatical studies are sometimes forced to argue a thesis too closely or to cover all the data too briskly.
As a tool in reading and exegesis, this volume seeks to encourage attention to the difficulties of a text in a written language from the ancient world of a different culture. Too brief a program of study in Hebrew can be misleading or even dangerous; facile mastery can make students believe that they grasp a text when all they hold is a memory of a received translation. The distortions of using the Hebrew language as the key to an alien mindset are not part of our program; current scholarship has outgrown such views. But Hebrew remains a foreign language to native speakers of English and other European languages. This grammar seeks to help them realize the character of that foreignness, primarily with regard to the interaction of syntax and semantics. We are concerned with what the forms of Hebrew mean, how those meanings can be appropriated, and, incidentally, and chiefly by example, how those meanings can be rendered in English.
The great native-speaker tradition of Hebrew grammar associated with medieval Jewry is the first basis of this study. This tradition has been passed on for centuries, and it fed into the modern European tradition canonized by Wilhelm Gesenius in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The second basis is modern linguistic study, its roots contemporary with Gesenius and its first flowers contemporary with the edition of Gesenius’s grammar currently in print in English (1910). On these two bases this grammar stands, leaning now more on one, now more on the other. The aim of this volume is not novelty; indeed, too much novelty would not be appropriate. Yet the enormous body of scholars concerned with the Hebrew Bible has produced much that is new, and each new view or concept repositions and reshapes all other facets of the grammar, however slightly. It is safe to say, then, that any reader will find something new here, and safer to say that each reader will find something to disagree with.
Although this is not a comprehensive syntax of the Hebrew Bible, it provides a full overview of the topic and draws on a rich and diverse body of scholarship. Important studies by, for example, F. I. Andersen, Ernst Jenni, and Dennis Pardee, are here for the first time brought into a survey of Hebrew grammar; other studies are evaluated, still others cited only in passing. Like David Qimh[i, we are often gleaners following reapers. Some of the distortions to be found in the literature are criticized. The bibliography will direct students not only to the works we have used here, but also to reference works and to studies on Hebrew phonology and morphology, topics not treated here. We have provided a basic bibliography of Biblical Hebrew studies because no such tool is currently available.
Though we aim to help students in evaluating and appraising the secondary literature, we are not directly concerned with such appraisals. We have not been able to use and cite as wide a range of materials as we would like, but the range is considerable. Much new literature has appeared during the years we have been at work. In cases where only details of our exposition were affected, we were better able to incorporate new findings and views. On larger issues we were often unable to revise and reshape as much as we would have liked, in response to a variety of recent introductory grammars as well as major scholarly contributions, for example, Shelomo Morag’s paper on Qumran Hebrew, Jaakov Levi’s essay on Die Inkongruenz im biblischen Hebräisch, and John Huehnergard’s monograph on Ugaritic. Issues of Hans-Peter Müller’s new journal Zeitschrift für Althebraistik only reached us in the last stages of our work.
Some other bases of the volume need notice. Comparative Semitic data has been drawn on to illuminate and provide perspectives, though we presuppose no knowledge of the other languages. Given our two primary bases, this use is inevitable. The earliest Hebrew grammarians spoke Arabic as well as Hebrew, so the tradition begins with a comparative bias. The decipherment of cuneiform and the development of modern grammars of Akkadian has affected the interpretation of every facet of the Hebrew verb. Alongside Arabic and Akkadian, the great languages originally spoken south and east of Hebrew, are the other languages of the ancient Levant, Hebrew’s closest relatives—Moabite, Ammonite, and Phoenician-Punic as well as the older language of Ugarit and the more distantly related Aramaic languages. Citation of comparative Semitic data is restrained, but is always in our judgment crucial to the argument at hand. Similarly crucial is comparative data from English and other European languages. Contrastive analysis of languages is now commonplace in modern language teaching. Such information serves to remind students how their own and related languages work. Not all students have a broad and firm grounding in linguistics—this book presupposes no acquaintance with that subject—and English may be taken as a fixed and engaging point of reference. The use of English-language data serves, at least in part, to expose the pre-understandings of English readers. Indeed, in the light of an “exotic” language like Hebrew, English turns out to be an “exotic” language, too. In the labor of reading or translation, the target language is no more “natural” or “correct” than the source language.
The shape of the book is irregular—we have not sought to balance exactly the various aspects of Hebrew or to divide up the materials into equal portions. A proper grasp of the Piel stem or the prefix conjugation requires the use of concepts and notions that may seem overly theoretical. The chapter on the preposition, in contrast, may seem too largely lexical. Certain topics are not treated fully: the adverbs, especially the negative particles, do not receive the focused attention they might, though there are relevant references throughout. The labor of the writing of each book must be limited or at least called to a halt.
The Use of This Book
The structure of this volume is largely topical and logical rather than pedagogical. Teachers and students are free to approach the material as they like and make adaptations appropriate to their own program and circumstances. After the opening section, any of the four remaining sections can be taken up; the various tables of contents and the topical index should facilitate cross-checking. In each of those sections, certain chapters require conceptual exposition, while others demand review and consideration of the examples in context. We have provided many, many examples in full or extended citation, with glosses (not translations). The examples are all from the Bible, with three or four exceptions, where it is clear that a modern imitation of Biblical Hebrew is being given. Students are urged to read the examples quoted here and eventually to check them (and the other examples cited in the notes) in the biblical context. Because examples are sometimes excerpted and abridged, they do not necessarily reflect the actual text. The renderings given here tend to present a dynamic equivalent, sometimes complemented by a more literal gloss reflecting the grammatical point at issue—though the term lit. is sometimes used loosely. A few Hebrew words are left unglossed, and renderings of a biblical excerpt may vary from section to section of the book. The English versions are not strictly a help or a trot—readers should try to explain (or improve on) our suggestions, often drawn from modern versions, and should consider possible alternatives. Interpretive additions are given in brackets, while other additions, including grammatical information, appear in parentheses. Final ellipses are generally not used in Hebrew text. Verse is set off in lines where such an arrangement would require no extra space. Single quotation marks (‘ / ‘) are used for glosses and renderings, double marks (“ / “) for quotations and technical terms.
A one-year-long approach to teaching the work would involve devoting approximately one week to each of twenty-eight chapters or pairs of chapters, leaving for cursory review or study outside classes Chapters 1-3, 5, 15-19 and combining 11 and 12, 24 and 25, and 27 and 28. Some teachers may prefer to skip individual sections and reshape the material in other ways. We anticipate preparing a shorter version of this grammar, perhaps equipped with exercises and key and more suitable for a brief course’ and invite comments from users of this volume. Experienced teachers know that grammar becomes significant to students only as they are led to use it. In any format, intermediate or advanced grammatical study should accompany the reading of the masterpieces of biblical prose, such as the Joseph and Ruth stories, as well as some of the major biblical poems such as Psalm 100 and the Song of Hannah. During such reading students should apply the principles outlined here and begin to use the grammar both for reference and for extended study. The brief glossary covers chiefly grammatical terms, chiefly those liable to confusion and those unlikely to be found in other reference works; in no sense is it intended to compete with the text of the book.
The indexes cover four fields: topics, modern authorities cited, Hebrew words, and biblical passages. Used with the chapter tables of contents the topical index should direct students to any relevant discussion here.
The biblical text is generally quoted from Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1977), though in some cases we have preferred the evidence of the Masoretic margins (Qere) or other Masoretic manuscripts, or the Samaritan Pentateuch, or we have cited a text reflected in the ancient versions or an emendation. For the perpetual Qere readings, we use the long form of Jerusalem and the feminine third-singular pronoun where appropriate; we leave the Tetragrammaton unpointed. Cases in which we vary from BHS are rare: this volume is no substitute for an introduction to text-critical problems. In quoting the Hebrew text some of the more anomalous readings of the Leningrad Codex are retained (e.g., 1 Sam 9:21 and Ruth 3:9, with BHS against the text of the earlier Biblia Hebraica of 1937 [BH3]; Gen 32:18, with BHS and BH3 against other editions), though some are silently replaced by a standard text (e.g., a sop pasuq missing from Leningrad but reported for other texts by BHS, as in Exod 20:3). (On the basis of his autopsy of the 1971 Makor facsimile edition of Leningrad, J. Alan Groves, of Westminster Theological Seminary, informs us that the Gen 32:18 variant is probably a typographical error in both BH3 and BHS.) The Masoretic accents are given in some cases, and the stress, where it is not final, is marked. Athnach and sop pasuq (but not silluq), major verse dividers, are given from the text, and stress is shown with the mark <. The verse dividers give a sense of a verse’s overall shape and are given even where the stress mark is also found; this redundancy reflects the mixed phonological and syntactic bases of Masoretic accentuation. Stress is shown only as a feature of the word; only main stress is shown; and stress groups covering several words are thus not set off. In citing single items attested forms are usually given, rather than dictionary forms; in a few cases in lists athnach instead of sop pasuq is used to show that a form is pausal. Once or twice the verse divider of the MT is retained even though the gloss shows that we believe a transposition is necessary. Methegh is given either from BHS or as needed, though not all possible cases are supplied. Transliterations follow the now widely accepted systems of the major scholarly journals, except in two features: turned e (ə) is used for shewa and e with breve (ĕ) for hateph seghol; and the matres lectionis of plene short vowels are not written with parentheses. This standard system, based as it is on a dubious reconstruction of Hebrew phonology, is not perfect but it is workable and should be familiar to every student. In general, Hebrew is given in characters in the text and in transliteration in the notes, but some variation is to be found in both directions. We have been spare in using the single asterisk (to mark unattested or primitive linguistic forms; *yaqtul) and the double asterisk (to mark forms that would be impossible in Hebrew; **yaqtal). Diacritics are, as often as possible while still preserving clarity, omitted from pattern words (Piel, not Pi(ēl).
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