Hebrew Verbs and Minor Keys How a Hebrew

Hebrew Verbs and Minor Keys: How a Hebrew Poetry Seminar Changed My Bass -Playing Benjamin D. Giffone, Ph. D 1

Theology Department Seminar • • • Fellowship, community Share advanced research that doesn’t come up in class Show integration of research/learning, and faith Hear from outside professionals in our field, and LCC grads Students sharing research: Theses, Final Projects

My Story: From Seminary into Grad School • Undergrad and seminary: Exposure to academic study of the Bible, in confessional context • Choice: Go to graduate school (in OT, of course!)? Or, MA in Linguistics, and Bible translation?

Cairn University

Hebrew Verbs, Word Order, and Acrostics

Hebrew Verbs, Word Order, and Acrostics • Natural word order in Biblical Hebrew: Verb-Subject-Object (VSO). (Contrast with English: SVO. ) • Hebrew is highly-inflected language; word order can be varied for emphasis or poesis. When other than VSO, typically the first word is emphasized. – Natural word order: “I-have-sought-you with-all-of—my-heart. ” – Poetic word order: “With-all-of—my-heart I-have-sought-you. ” (Ps 119: 10 a) דרשׁתּיך בּכל־לבּי

Hebrew Verbs, Word Order, and Acrostics • Alphabetic acrostics: Each poetic line begins with successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. – Pss 9– 10; 25; 34; 37; 111; 112; 145; Lam 1; 2; 4; Prov 31: 10– 31 – “Super-acrostics”! Lam 3 (three lines per letter); Ps 119 (eight lines per letter)

Alphabetic Acrostics Lamentations 1 1 a ( )א How ( )איכה lonely sits the city that was full of people; 1 b She has become like a widow, she who was great among the nations; 1 c The princess among the provinces has become a slave. 2 a( )ב She weeps ( )בכו bitterly in the night with tears on her cheeks; 2 b She has no comforter among all her lovers; 2 c All her friends have betrayed her, becoming her enemies. 3 a ( )ג Judah has gone into exile ( )גלתה because of affliction and much servitude; 3 b She herself dwells among the nations, not finding a place of rest. 3 c… All her pursuers have overtaken her in the midst of her troubles….

Alphabetic Acrostics: A Triple Acrostic Lamentations 3 1 ( )א I am ( )אני the strongman who has seen affliction under his rod of fury; 2 ( )א It is I ( )אותי whom he has driven and brought to darkness without light. 3 ( )א Surely ( )אך he has turned against me; he overturns his hand all day long. 4 ( )ב He has worn out ( )בלה my flesh and my skin; he has broken my bones. 5 ( )ב He has built ( )בנה against me and surrounded me with bitterness and tribulation. 6 ( )ב He has made me dwell in darknesses ( ) במחשכים as the eternally dead. 7 ( )ג He has walled me in ( )גדר so that I cannot go out; he has made my chains heavy. 8 ( )ג Even though ( )גם I call and cry out, he shuts out my prayer. 9 ( )ג He has walled up ( )גדר my paths with hewn stones; he has twisted my ways.

Hebrew Verb Inflections • Triliteral (three-consonant) Root • Stem • Conjugation – Three indicative forms, but only two used in poetry – Non-indicatives, but some can function as indicative • Person/number/gender inflection • Object suffix

Hebrew Verb Inflections • Triliteral (three-consonant) Root קטל Q Ṫ L “kill”

Hebrew Verb Inflections • Triliteral (three-consonant) Root • Stem הקטיל Hi. Q Ṫ Y L “he caused to kill”

Hebrew Verb Inflections • Triliteral (three-consonant) Root • Stem • Conjugation (perfect/qatal; imperfect/yiqtol) נקטל Ni Q Ṫ o L “we kill/will kill”

Hebrew Verb Inflections • • Triliteral (three-consonant) Root Stem Conjugation Person/number/gender inflection קטלת Q aṪ a L T a “you (ms) killed”

Hebrew Verb Inflections • • • Triliteral (three-consonant) Root Stem Conjugation Person/number/gender inflection Object suffix קטלתני Q aṪ a L T a NY “you (ms) killed me”

Verb Choice and Acrostics • If the acrostic form is adopted, the poet has limited choices for which verbs s/he can lead with (if a line begins naturally with a verb) • Perfect/qatal form: with stems G (Qal), D/Dp (Piel, Pual), can lead any line in the acrostic (because any letter can be a first root-letter) • Imperfect/yiqtol form: can only lead lines א י נ ת • (Other stems/forms are also limited in which lines they can appear as line-initial form: H/Hp; Dt (Hitp); D ptc; N; etc. )

Verb Choice and Acrostics • Research Question: Do the alphabetic acrostic poems in fact prefer the qatal form over the yiqtol form? – If so, is this merely dictated by the poetic artifice, or is there something about the qatal form that is more suitable for the “meaning” of an acrostic poem (perhaps connoting completeness)? – Lunn: “Differentiating pragmatics and poetics” • Result: qatal is preferred in acrostics, and not just in the “key word” spots for the sake of the acrostic • “A ‘Perfect’ Poem: The Use of the QATAL Verbal Form in the Biblical Acrostics. ” Hebrew Studies 51 (2010): 49– 72. muse. jhu. edu/article/400577/pdf.

Stellenbosch University

Acrostics, Lamentations, and Protest • Why do Lamentations 1, 2, 3 and 4 adopt this acrostic form? (Lam 5 has twenty-two verses, but is not an acrostic) • MTh thesis: “From Time-Bound to Timeless: The Rhetoric of Lamentations and Its Appropriation” • Article: “The Timeless, Unifying Rhetoric of Lamentations. ” Old Testament Essays 25 (2012): 534– 558. hdl. handle. net/10520/EJC 132563.

Acrostics, Lamentations, and Protest • “Flowering” of Lamentations studies after Holocaust • Rigid acrostic form, resisted and broken for the sake of protest

Acrostic Protest Lam 1 1 -8 9 10 11 12 -16 17 18 -22 … Her uncleanliness is in her skirts; she did not remember her end. And so she goes down wonderfully! She has no comforter. “Look ( )ראה , YHWH, at my affliction, for the enemy has become great!” … All her people groan, searching for bread; They give their treasures for food to bring back the soul. “Look ( )ראה , YHWH, and see that I am despised!” 12 “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by on the road? Look ( )ראה and see whethere is any sorrow like my sorrow…” … … 20 ( " )ר Look ( )ראה , YHWH, for I am in distress…” … Speaker Addressee Observer General Daughter Zion! YHWH Observer General Daughter Zion! Observer Daughter Zion! YHWH Passersby General Peoples YHWH

Acrostics, Lamentations, and Protest • “Flowering” of Lamentations studies after Holocaust • Rigid acrostic form, resisted and broken for the sake of protest • Lends credibility to Daughter Zion’s protest: measured response that nevertheless strains the boundaries of the structure • Divinely-given protest against YHWH; YHWH has no answer in Lamentations (though he answers in Isa 40– 55)

Lamentations: Protest “[Lamentations] is more about the expression of suffering than the meaning behind it, more about the vicissitudes of survival than the abstractions of sin and guilt, and more about protest as a religious posture than capitulation or confession. ” Tod Linafelt, Surviving Lamentations, 4 (emphasis original).

Lamentations: Protest “To [sustain the hope of Lamentations 3] would be to lie, to cover, to deny the reality of the survivor’s longing for God’s missing voice. ” O’Connor also addresses the silence of God in Lamentations. If a hypothetical “Lamentations 6” had been composed with an answer, “no matter what God said, Lamentations would come to premature resolution, and the book’s capacity to house sorrow would dissipate. ” Kathleen O’Connor, Lamentations and the Tears of the World, 79, 85.

Lament and Worship • In philosophy, theology, real life: The recognition that things are not the way they should be • In worship: The psalms of lament (individual and communal), imprecation, confession • In communion: lament our sins; lament as words of Jesus calling his Father to “look and see!”

Loss of Lament? “Where lament is absent, covenant comes into being only as a celebration of joy and well-being…. The greater party (God) is surrounded by subjects who are always ‘yes men and women’ from whom ‘never is heard a discouraging word. ’” Brueggemann, “The Costly Loss of Lament, ” 60.

Acrostics, Lamentations, and Worship Leading • Recognizing the deficiency in my musical and liturgical tradition (white, low-church, American evangelicalism – the Chris Tomlin, K-LOVE formula) • Drawing on other resources

Acrostics, Lamentations, and Worship Leading • Recognizing the deficiency in my musical and liturgical tradition • Drawing on other resources – Messianic – Use of scripture itself, often OT; minor key; good balance of power/strength and sadness/lament; awareness of religious calendar – Gospel, jazz, folk—musical traditions shaped in part by lament and suffering – Classic hymns: theological depth, progression through a song and series of orientation-disorientation-reorientation – Choral music – Historic liturgy, Church calendar, and the Common Lectionary

Acrostics, Lamentations, and Worship Leading • Recognizing the deficiency in my musical and liturgical tradition • Drawing on other resources • Implications for my musicianship: The medium shapes the message – Being a bassist is more fun when we play messianic and jazz; music written on/for pop guitar or pop piano feels different, and does not always force the musicians to play all together. – Re-shape hymns to be “bass-able” – Some songs not suitable for the style/instruments I can play! Forced to rely on other musicians: organist, choral directors

Conclusion: Academic Study and the Church • Testing out the things I was learning in my research, by putting them into practice as a worship leader; open to critique of elders and laity – This doesn’t always work out well for academics or the church • Some resentful former believers or liberal believers: everything you thought you knew about the Bible is wrong! • Church structures: not sufficiently anchored in tradition to accept new ideas, or too rigidly anchored in tradition! – This didn’t always work out well for me! Story for another time.

Conclusion: Academic Study and the Church • Testing out the things I was learning in my research, by putting them into practice as a worship leader; open to critique of elders and laity • Letting study add depth to my church’s worship • Study can lead to pride (“My ideas are worth considering!”); worship re-orients us back to the God whose image we reflect • Worship as answer to the problem of suffering and evil, in my own life – Claudia’s illness, Joe’s illness and death

Hebrew Verbs and Minor Keys: How a Hebrew Poetry Seminar Changed My Bass -Playing Benjamin D. Giffone, Ph. D 33