continued by means of a perfect, Is 1417 שָׂם תֵּבֵל כַּמִּדְבָּר וְעָרָיו הָרָ֑ס that made the world as a wilderness, and overthrew the cities thereof[1]; 43:7, Ez 223, ψ 13613 ff., Pr 217; by a perfect without Wāw, Gn 4911; by a simple imperfect (as the modus rei repetitae in the present), Is 523, 466, Pr 78, Jb 1217, 19 ff., 24:21; by an imperfect without Wāw, e.g. 1 S 28, Is 58, Pr 214, 1926; by an imperfect consecutive, Gn 2733, 353, 1 S 26, Jer 1310 (after several participles), ψ 1833, 13610f.
C. The Government of the Verb.
[a] 1. The simplest way in which a noun is subordinated to a verbal form is by the addition of an accusative of the object to a transitive verb.[2] In the absence of case-endings,[3] this accusative can now be recognized only from the context, or by the particle אֶת־ (אֵת, before suffixes also אֹת, אוֹת)[4] prefixed to it. The use of this nota accusativi
- ↑ On the parallelism between the external and internal members, which appears here and in many other examples of this kind, see the note on § 114 r.
- ↑ The verb in question may either have been originally transitive, or only have become transitive by a modification of its original meaning. Thus the vocalization shows that חָפֵץ (to have pleasure, usually with בְּ) to desire, מָלֵא (to be full of something, also transitive) to fill, were originally intransitive. Cf. also such cases as בָּכָה to weep (generally with עַל־, אֶל־ or לְ), but also to bewail with an accusative; יָשַׁב to dwell (usually with בְּ), but also to inhabit with an accusative (cf. further, under u).—The examples are different in which verbs of motion such as בּוֹא intrare, also aggredi, יָצָֹא egredi (cf. § 116 h above), שׁוּב redire, Is 528, take an accusative of the aim of the motion, while בּוֹא according to the Old Semitic usage, even takes an accusative of the person (at least in poetry, equivalent to בּוֹא אֶל־ in prose).
- ↑ On traces of these endings, especially the remains of a former accusative ending in a, cf. § 90 c.
- ↑ אֶת־ (toneless owing to the following Maqqeph), and אֵת (with a tone-long ē, אֵֽת־ only in Jb 4126), אֹת or אוֹת before the light suffixes (on all these forms cf. § 103 b: the underlying form āth was obscured in Hebrew to ôth, shortened to ăth before suffixes beginning with a consonant and then modified to אֶת־, whence finally the secondary form אֵת with the tone), Phoenician אית i.e. probably iyyāth (for the Phoenician form, cf. G. Hoffmann, Einige phönik. Inschriften, Göttingen, 1889, p. 39 f.), Punic yth or (according to Euting) pronounced even as a mere prefixed t, Arabic, before suffixes, ’iyyâ, Aram. יָת, יַת. It was no doubt originally a substantive, meaning essence, substance, self (like the Syriac yāth; on the other hand, any connexion with the Hebrew אוֹת, Syriac ’āiā, Arabic ’āyat, a sign, must, with Nöldeke, ZDMG. xl. 738, be rejected), but now united in the construct state with a following noun or suffix stands for the pronoun ipse, αὐτός. In common use, however (cf. Wilson, ‘The particle את in Hebrew,’ Hebraica, vi. 2, 3, and the precise statistics of the use of את on p. 140 ff.), it has so little force (like the oblique cases αὐτοῦ, αὐτῷ, αὐτόν, sometimes also ipsius, ipsum, and the Germ. desselben, &c.) that it merely serves to introduce a determinate object; אֵת הַשָּׁמַ֫יִם prop. αὐτὸν τὸν οὐρανόν (cf. αὐτὴν Χρυσηΐδα, Iliad i. 143) is no stronger than the simple הַשָּׁמַ֫יִם τὸν οὐρανόν. Cf., further, P. Haupt on Pr 1824 in his Rainbow Bible, and also in the Notes on Esther, p. 191.
