Beginning to Compose

For practicing all composition and asking questions to get past hurdles
Post Reply
User avatar
Jason
Posts: 47
Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2021 12:13 am
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Contact:

Beginning to Compose

Post by Jason »

The first exercise in this textbook begins like this:
There was a famine in the land of Canaan, for the people were sinful unto the Lord. And the Lord spoke unto Abraham and he said unto him: ‘Behold, there is a famine in the land.’
We went over it in today's online session.

We know that there is is the particle יֵשׁ and that אֵין is its negation. There is no past tense of יש, so Hebrew uses הָיָה instead. Consider the following:
1) יֵשׁ כֶּ֫סֶףThere is money.
2) אֵין כֶּ֫סֶףThere is no money.

1') הָיָה כֶּ֫סֶףThere was money.
2') לֹא הָיָה כֶּ֫סֶףThere was no money.
The chances are that the book expects us to use vav-consecutives (past narrative) as much as is sensible when writing, and we would expect that in real Hebrew text. The past narrative for היה is וַיְהִי. Since רָעָב is masculine, we don't need to adjust it at all. If it were a feminine subject (such as סְעָרָה "a storm"), we'd have to change it to feminine. The plural would be וַיִּהְיוּ.
3) וַיְהִי רָעָבThere was a famine.
4) וַתְּהִי סְעָרָהThere was a storm.
5) וַיִּהְיוּ בָּֽתִּים רַבִּיםThere were many houses.
The land of Canaan is a construct phrase formed by simply joining the two words together: אֶ֫רֶץ כְּנַ֫עַן. To make it say "in," you just add בְּ־ and end up with בְּאֶ֫רֶץ כְּנַ֫עַן.

So far, it should be pretty clear that we write There was a famine in the land of Canaan as וַיְהִי רָעָב בְּאֶ֫רֶץ כְּנַ֫עַן.

The next phrase begins with the reason behind this plague (according to the author)—that the people were sinful to the Lord (meaning, Yahweh).

I take were sinful as a stative sense of the verb לַחֲטֹא "to sin." The verb loves to follow right behind grammar words (conjunctions and the like), so the verb would jump up to be right after כִּי.

Since the people, though grammatically singular (collective), represents a group and not just one person, the verb could possibly appear as singular (grammatical concord) or as plural (constructio ad sensum). It's more common for it to go with grammatical concord, so rather than כִּי חָֽטְאוּ, let's go with כִּי חָטָא and pair it with the subject הָעָם.

The only thing left is to add to the Lord:
וַיְהִי רָעָב בְּאֶ֫רֶץ כְּנַ֫עַן כִּי חָטָא הָעָם לַיהוָה
There was a famine in the land of Canaan, for the people were sinful ("had sinned") to the Lord.
This is just going over what we already covered in the class. I'll add the rest of this section soon.
Jason Hare
The Hebrew Café | Tel Aviv, Israel | thehebrewcafe.com
User avatar
Jason
Posts: 47
Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2021 12:13 am
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Contact:

Re: Beginning to Compose

Post by Jason »

The second phrase from the above is:
And the Lord spoke unto Abraham and he said unto him: ‘Behold, there is a famine in the land.’
Here we should learn to distinguish between דִּבֶּר "he spoke" and אָמַר "he said." Just as we have "speak" and "say" in English, we have these two verbs in Hebrew.
Greek > English > Hebrew
λαλεῖν > to speak > לדַבֵּר
λέγειν > to say > לוֹמַר
These are basic rules of thumb. Of course, Greek λέγειν can be used for speaking languages, but this is the basic overlap.

The word וַיֹּ֫אמֶר "and he said" is generally paired with some other speech verb to form a type of couplet.
וַיְדַבֵּר אַבְרָהָם וַיֹּ֫אמֶר "Abraham spoke and he said"
וַיַּ֫עַן אַבְרָהָם וַיֹּ֫אמֶר "Abraham answered and said"
וַיִּשְׁאַל אַבְרָהָם וַיֹּ֫אמֶר "Abraham asked and said"
The "and said" is really just introducing the instance of speech. For that reason, it is often interchangeable with לֵאמֹר "saying."

This combination is what we have here, in which we have "speak" and "say" used together. Yahweh is the subject of "spoke" and Abraham is the recipient of the speech. So...
וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֶל־אַבְרָהָם וַיֹּ֫אמֶר אֵלָיו
That is a good indication that what follows is direct speech, and that's what we have here. It begins with the interjection "Behold!" which we all know in Hebrew.
וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֶל־אַבְרָהָם וַיֹּ֫אמֶר אֵלָיו הִנֵּה
Weingreen gave us a note in the textbook saying that it's enough to just say "famine in the land." This is true. "Behold, a famine in the land" is perfectly good for "behold, there is a famine in the land." The word for "famine" is the same as the word for "hunger": רָעָב. And to close it out, we just say בָּאָ֫רֶץ.
וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֶל־אַבְרָהָם וַיֹּ֫אמֶר אֵלָיו הִנֵּה רָעָב בָּאָ֫רֶץ
If you wanted to add the word "there is," we could either put it in independently or join it with makaf to the following word, and we'll be finished with these first couple of clauses.
וַיְהִי רָעָב בְּאֶ֫רֶץ כְּנַ֫עַן כִּי חָטָא הָעָם לַיהוָה וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֶל־אַבְרָהָם וַיֹּ֫אמֶר אֵלָיו הִנֵּה (יֵשׁ) רָעָב בָּאָ֫רֶץ
Or:
וַיְהִי רָעָב בְּאֶ֫רֶץ כְּנַ֫עַן כִּי חָטָא הָעָם לַיהוָה וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֶל־אַבְרָהָם וַיֹּ֫אמֶר אֵלָיו הִנֵּה יֶשׁ־רָעָב בָּאָ֫רֶץ
Jason Hare
The Hebrew Café | Tel Aviv, Israel | thehebrewcafe.com
User avatar
Jason
Posts: 47
Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2021 12:13 am
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Contact:

Re: Beginning to Compose

Post by Jason »

Good luck with the rest of your composition this week!
Jason Hare
The Hebrew Café | Tel Aviv, Israel | thehebrewcafe.com
mplioplis
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2021 3:12 pm

Re: Beginning to Compose

Post by mplioplis »

תֹדַה יֶיִסֹן
User avatar
Jason
Posts: 47
Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2021 12:13 am
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Contact:

Re: Beginning to Compose

Post by Jason »

mplioplis wrote: Wed Sep 08, 2021 1:46 pm תֹדַה יֶיִסֹן
כֹּתְבִים אֶת־שְׁמִי גֵּ׳ייסוֹן
Jason Hare
The Hebrew Café | Tel Aviv, Israel | thehebrewcafe.com
mplioplis
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2021 3:12 pm

Re: Beginning to Compose

Post by mplioplis »

אַנִי מִצטַעֵר גֵּ׳ייסוֹן
User avatar
Jason
Posts: 47
Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2021 12:13 am
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Contact:

Re: Beginning to Compose

Post by Jason »

mplioplis wrote: Thu Sep 09, 2021 4:45 am אַנִי מִצטַעֵר גֵּ׳ייסוֹן
אֵין עַל מָה לְהִצְטָעֵר.
Jason Hare
The Hebrew Café | Tel Aviv, Israel | thehebrewcafe.com
Post Reply