The textlinguistics of the Suffering Servant: Subordinate structures in Isaiah 52,13-53,12 (2011)

Ἐν πάσῃ γραμματικῇ καὶ σοφίᾳ

En pāsē grammatikē kai sophiā

Saggi di linguistica ebraica in onore di

Alviero Niccacci, ofm

a cura diGregor Geiger

in collaborazione con Massimo Pazzini

FranciscanPrinting Press

EdizioniTerra Santa

Indice generale

Prefazione 9.............................................................................................

Abbreviazioni 11.......................................................................................

Collaboratori 12........................................................................................

BOTTINI G. ClaudioScheda bio-bibliografica di Alviero NICCACCI 13.......................................

BARANOWSKI Krzysztof J.The Article in the Book of Qoheleth 31....................................................

BARTELMUS Rüdiger !"! (!#!): Sein oder werden? Sein und werden! Ein hebräisches (aramäisches) Allerweltswort und das Phänomen des lebenslangen Lernens 53.....................................

CHIESA BrunoDivagazioni tiberiensi 75..........................................................................

CRIMELLA MatteoIl Signore vede il cuore! Fra analisi sintattica e narratologia. Il caso di 1Sam 16,1-13 85..............

ESKHULT MatsThoughts on Phrases and Clauses Expressing Circumstance in Biblical Hebrew Narration 107.....................

FASSBERG Steven E.The Shift from qal to piel in the Book of Qoheleth 123.............................

GEIGER GregorErzählte Welt und wayyiqtol 129................................................................

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6 Ἐνπάσῃγραμματικῇκαὶσοφίᾳ

GROSS Walterwa=yiqtol für Anknüpfung/Wiederaufnahme: Stilmittel und redaktionelles Verfahren 153...............................................

ISAKSSON BoThe Textlinguistics of the Suffering Servant: Subordinate Structures in Isaiah 52,13-53,12 173......................................

JOOSTEN JanA Neglected Rule and Its Exceptions: On Non-Volitive yiqtol in Clause-Initial Position 213...............................

MESSINA PaoloIl sistema verbale dell’Aramaico Biblico: Un approccio linguistico-testuale 221.........................................................

NOTARIUS TaniaText, Discourse and Tenses in the Victory Song in 2Sam 22,33-46: In Search of the Underlying Literary Convention 257...............................

PAZZINI MassimoThe Peshi!ta of the Twelve Prophets and the Texts of the Dead Sea 283..............................................................

PIERRI RosarioPerifrasi verbali con "#$%&'( ed )*+,-' nei LXX 295..............................

TALSTRA EepSinners and Syntax: Poetry and Discourse in Jeremiah 5 337....................

VOLGGER DavidDie Bestattung Jakobs (Gen 50,1-14) – oder: Die Tora Israels auf dem Weg von Ägypten nach Kanaan 357..................

WATSON Wilfred G. E.Alcuni brani dell’Antico Testamento e testi dal Vicino Oriente antico 371...........................................................

W.GRZYNIAK WojciechLa problematica temporale dei verbi nei salmi 14 e 53 381.......................

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Indice generale 7

ZEVIT ZionySyntagms in Biblical Hebrew: Four Short Studies 393..............................

ZEWI TamarOn ! $% $& " '( and ! $% $& ! )* '! +# in Biblical Hebrew 405..........................................

Sintesi degli articoli 415............................................................................. Abstracts 423...............................................................................................

Indici dei passi e degli autori citati 431......................................................

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Bo Isaksson

The Textlinguistics of the Suffering Servant: Subordinate Structures in Isaiah 52,13-53,12

My first encounter with Hebrew textlinguistics was Alviero NICCACCI’s ideas inSintassi del verbo ebraico nella prosa biblica classica (1986). It was a com-pletely new perspective which raised the thinking of many scholars includingmyself above the level of the clause to an entity called ‘text’. Since then He-brew linguistics has never been the same.

1. Theoretical foundations

This study on the text of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah is based on a linguisticresearch project that resulted in the book Circumstantial qualifiers in Semitic:The case of Arabic and Hebrew. The account of verbal ‘grams’ in classicalHebrew builds on the article ‘Althebräisches und semitisches Aspektsystem’by Josef TROPPER.1 The gram concept with its theoretical framework and new

1 It is the merit of Josef TROPPER to have been the first scholar to argue for a three-part He-brew aspectual system (VprefS/VprefL/Vsuff) in a full-scale comparative Semitic study (TROP-PER, Aspektsystem; later also SANDE, Perspective). There is, in addition to the three basic grams,a morpheme -! which could be added to the 1st person forms of the short prefix conjugation andto the imperative in order to enhance their modal force (thus for 1st person forms resulting in“cohortative” VprefS-A and IMP-A); there is also an “energicus” morpheme -(a)nnV whichcould give emphasis to both short and long forms of the prefix conjugation as well as the impe-rative (thus for all persons resulting in VprefS-N, VprefL-N and IMP-N, TROPPER, Kanaanäi-sches, 136; KORCHIN, Markedness, 328). In TROPPER’s study the Hebrew verbal system is under-stood in full accordance with the ancient Canaanite dialects of the 14th century and the somewhatlater Northwest Semitic epigraphic texts. This system is also the result of SCHÜLE’s investigation(Syntax) of the ancient Hebrew inscriptions and KORCHIN’s (Markedness, 338) study of marked-ness in the Canaanite and Hebrew verbs. The main tenets of TROPPER’s article (Aspektsystem)are further elaborated in SANDE, Perspective. MORAN (Byblos; Hebrew) and RAINEY (Prefix con-jugation; Canaanite) on the basis of the Canaanite in the Amarna tablets advocate a similar ver-bal system, but their comparative scope is more limited than TROPPER’s. ISAKSSON, Qualifiers,125ff, arrived at the same conclusions with a different methodological approach, in a study ofcircumstantial clauses in Arabic and biblical Hebrew. Our conclusion was that there are no ‘con-versive waws’ and no ‘converted tenses’ in BH. The aspectual system in the present article dif-

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174The Textlinguistics of the Suffering Servant: Subordinate Structures in Is 52,13-53,12

approach to the TAM categories is taken from recent crosslinguistic typologi-cal research, chiefly by Joan BYBEE and Östen DAHL (BYBEE, Creation; BYBEE,Evolution; DAHL, Tense-aspect; also ANDRASON, Panchronic yiqtol; and AN-

DRASON, Akkadian iprus).BYBEE and DAHL observe that “grammatical morphology is the major signal

of grammatical and discourse structure, as well as temporal and aspectual rela-tions”. Grammatical morphology is more important than word order (BYBEE,Creation, 51). It is no wonder that grammatical morphology is also a majorsignal of clause relations; “independent clauses code foreground and pivotalinformation, dependent clauses code background information”, where back-ground information “is that which elaborates or develops foreground informa-tion” (TOMLIN, Foreground, 85.89). This is especially salient in a syntax formedin an oral society. “The relative absence of formal markers of cohesion, whichthe addressee must reconstruct as part of the decoding process, is one of theconspicuous features distinguishing oral from written discourse” (FLEISCHMAN,Discourse, 864; a fuller treatment is found in FLEISCHMAN, Tense and narra-tivity).

For both BYBEE and DAHL the central concept is the ‘gram’. It is an abbre-viation for ‘grammatical morpheme’, and good examples are the progressive inEnglish, passé simple in French and, for the Westsemitic in the Amarna lettersdescribed by RAINEY (Canaanite II) the qatal (suffix conjugation), the yaqtulu(long prefix conjugation), and the yaqtul (short prefix conjugation). This isespecially significant for the Hebrew scholar, since “Amarna Canaanite is theclosest we can get a direct ancestor of biblical Hebrew” (ANDERSEN, Evolution,18). In the early Canaanite dialects there were three finite verbal grams, theVsuff, the VprefS and the VprefL.2

fers somewhat from TROPPER’s in that it is adopted from the descriptive account of the World’sTAM systems given in BYBEE, Evolution, while the system in TROPPER’s study is taken fromCOMRIE, Aspect (1976, but TROPPER quotes the 6th printing 1989). Abbreviations used in the pre-sent article:

CQ circumstantial qualifier Spron subject pronounIMP imperative TAM tense, aspect, moodNCl noun clause (verbless) VN verbal noun (infinitive)NP noun phrase Vpref prefix conjugationOnoun object noun VprefL prefix conjugation long formPA active participle VprefS prefix conjugation short formPP passive participle Vsuff suffix conjugationway the Hebrew morpheme way, “and”, with allomorphs (way, wat, wan, w!, wa),

which is in complementary distribution with the morpheme w= (allomorphs w=, +, w,, wå, wæ,wa, w!).

2 MORAN, Byblos, and, following him, RAINEY, Canaanite II, advocate a system of six “pat-terns” for Canaanite, but as TROPPER, Kanaanäisches, 136, points out, it cannot be shown that the“energic” (a Vpref-N) and “volitive” (a Vpref-A) were ever full-blown grams of their own. MO-RAN’s system looks quite attractive with a tidy balance between indicative and injunctive “pat-terns”: INDICATIVE preterite yaqtul, -û, imperfect yaqtulu, -ûna, energic yaqtulun(n)a; IN-

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The usual TAM categories are not grams. TAM categories instead describethe semantic content of grams. It seems to be typical for the languages of theworld that grams combine elements from several semantic domains. For exam-ple, the same gram may express both indicative and modal nuances dependingon context, as is the case with the short VprefS gram (MORAN’s and RAINEY’s“preterite” and “jussive”).

A gram is always language-specific, while a semantic category like ‘perfec-tive’ is a general linguistic concept. Language-specific items should be distin-guished from general linguistic concepts (DAHL, Tense-aspect, 7). The Westse-mitic so-called ‘perfect’ is a gram the semantics of which cannot be identifiedwith the perfect aspect, as RAINEY rightly points out. The traditional term ‘per-fect’ used for the Vsuff in Westsemitic “is definitely a misnomer”, “there isnothing, inherent or developed, in the basic construction of the suffix conjuga-tion to associate it with ‘completed action’” (RAINEY, Canaanite II, 282). Thesemantic category of ‘perfect’ (or ‘anterior’) is only one of several possiblemeanings of the Westsemitic suffix conjugation.

Grams in an individual language represent aggregations of previous mean-ings, which means that “[g]rammaticalization processes tend to give rise to si-tuations that do not easily lend themselves to a description in terms of binaryoppositions. Thus, grams tend to expand from a point of origin in a wave-likefashion, (metaphorically speaking) chasing each other along a path of develop-ment” (DAHL, Tense-aspect, 13). “[I]f each gram follows a path of develop-ment according to its original meaning, then it develops independently of othergrams” (BYBEE, Creation, 61). This means that a purely structuralistic approachwith systems of oppositions is less successful in explaining the multiple mean-ings of a specific gram. “Indeed, due to the multidimensionality of the gram-maticalization process, it may not be possible to establish a systematic seman-tic difference between two such grams.” (DAHL, Tense-aspect, 14; also BYBEE,Evolution, 1). This is a point where TROPPER’s otherwise innovative andgroundbreaking analysis of the Westsemitic verbal system fails (TROPPER,wyqtl; TROPPER, Aspektsystem). In his efforts to explain all uses of the Vsuffgram as “perfective”, the term ‘perfective’ becomes meaningless. It is simplyimpossible to explain all meanings of the Vsuff gram encountered in the West-semitic texts as “perfective” or else the term becomes void of meaning andfails to explain anything. Today, explaining the Westsemitic verbal system in

JUNCTIVE jussive yaqtul, -û, volitive yaqtula, -û, energic yaqtulan(n)a. When we examine thegrams involved we can observe that the “preterite” and the “jussive” in fact represent the samegram. The problem with MORAN’s six “patterns” is the blurring of semantic and morphologicaldefinitions. The terminology (“patterns”) suggests that the distinctions are morphological, butthe “preterite” and the “jussive” patterns coincide which RAINEY, Canaanite II, 245, also admits.Thus one and the same gram yaqtul (VprefS) has two distinct meanings in MORAN’s system, oneis narrative perfective and one is modal.

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terms of a binary opposition represents an out-of-date strategy. We have to re-cognize grams in development, not primarily aspectual oppositions.

The grammaticalization approach is fully utilized in a methodologicallyimportant recent article on the Hebrew VprefL gram by the linguist AlexanderANDRASON, “The panchronic yiqtol” (cf. also ANDRASON, Akkadian iprus). Hestates that “it should always be possible to embrace all synchronically incom-patible or heterogeneous values of a construction and explain it as a homoge-neous manifestation of a functional trajectory” (ibid., 2). He notes that “theterm ‘verbal gram’ approximates the notion of verbal grammatical construc-tions and is frequently employed to refer to formations that reflect any phase ofthe prototypical grammaticalization path, from lexical periphrastic inputs (pe-ripheral grams) to central synthetic categories (core grams). During the gram-maticalization process, grams ‘travel’ from the periphery to the centre of theverbal system acquiring and combining meanings that correspond to varioustypologically universal semantic domains like taxis, aspect, tense and mood.”(ibid., 3).

This means further that we do not have to concern ourselves with defining‘tense’ or ‘aspect’ or the more recalcitrant ‘mood’ as overarching categories,nor with deciding whether perfect is a tense or an aspect, or whether future is atense or a mood. Rather the relevant entity for the study of grammatical mean-ing is the individual gram, which must be viewed as having inherent semanticsubstance reflecting the history of its development as much as the place it occu-pies in a synchronic system (BYBEE, Creation, 97).

1.1 The classical Hebrew grams

1.1.1 VsuffThe Hebrew suffix conjugation gram (Vsuff) reflects a straightforward andcrosslinguistically well attested path of grammaticalization from a stative(non-dynamic verbs)/resultative (change-of-state verbs) in Proto-Semitic to ananterior and finally a perfective in Westsemitic (BYBEE, Evolution, 67.105).3 InPostbiblical Hebrew the Vsuff gram became a past tense.

The decisive innovation occurred already in early Westsemitic and is re-flected in Amarna Canaanite.4 The original Semitic Vsuff gram was a stative

3 In ISAKSSON, Qualifiers, 130, we advocated an original ‘completive’ origin of the Vsuffgram to account for its frequent use to establish facts and verify completed action, which is alsoa possible grammaticalization path for a gram seen in a crosslinguistic perspective (BYBEE, Evo-lution, 105), but the use of the Vsuff in Akkadian speaks in favour of a stative/resultative originof the anterior and perfective meanings in Westsemitic (ANDERSEN, Evolution, 8; SCHÜLE, Syn-tax, 127-128).

4 TROPPER (Aspektsystem, 182; Suffixkonjugation, 513) maintains that the innovation firstdeveloped in Central Semitic, then spread to other Westsemitic languages. When the Vsuff haddeveloped in such a way that it could also express a perfective, it thus rivalled the perfective

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and a ‘resultative’ in the sense given to it by BYBEE, Evolution, §3.6. Both aremeanings attested in Akkadian. Thus the prototypical meaning of the Vsuff is“a state that was brought about by some action in the past” (BYBEE, Evolution,63). For dynamic verbs “bezeichnet der St. den sich aus der Verbalhandlungergebenden Zustand wieder ohne Rücksicht auf die Zeitstufe” (SODEN, akkadi-sche Grammatik, §77e), and a good example of such a resultative is Akk. pa-ris ‘it is decided’. For stative verbs the prototypical meaning is a state, a mean-ing which is preserved in many BH stativic semanthemes, Vsuff ˀ!habt, ‘Ilove’, q!'ont, ‘I am not worthy’, k!bed ‘it is heavy’ (JOÜON-MURAOKA, §112a).

For dynamic verbs the Vsuff gram in the Westsemitic realm developed intoan anterior with a slight generalization of the meaning; from a resultative Johnis gone expressing that a state is brought about by some action in the past (astate persists at reference time), into an anterior (‘perfect’) John has gonemeaning that a past action has some undefined relevance in the present. Thedifference lies in the state persisting at reference time: while the resultativeJohn is gone does not permit John to be back again, the anterior opens for thepossibility that John has come back (John has gone and come back severaltimes; BYBEE, Evolution, 63.69).

Another generalization of the Vsuff in Westsemitic concerns the expansionto use with verbs of various semantic types. The resultative-to-anterior changeoccurred primarily with change-of-state verbs, while with a stative verb thesense of the Vsuff was ‘present state exists’. In later stages of development,there was “a convergence among grams from different sources”. In this pro-cess “the anterior gram changes the aspect of the stative predicate to inchoa-tive, that is it makes the stative predicate signal a change of state” (BYBEE,Evolution, 74-75). This is the reason why many originally stative verbs withVsuff have also an inchoative meaning, BH &!ken 1) ‘he resides’, 2) ‘hehas settled down’, m!lak 1) ‘he reigns’, 2) ‘he became king’ (SCHÜLE, Syn-tax, 127).

The original stative/resultative meaning of the Vsuff is retained in expres-sions of eternal truths, as in Arabic k!na ll!hu >af+ran ra$,man ‘God is merci-ful’ (Sura 4:96, etc., FISCHER, Arabic, §181b, n.2). The statement in Isaiah52,7, m!lak ˀæl5h!yik ‘Your God reigns as king!’ (BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah, 338) isas eternal as the Arabic example and represents an aspect with a definitive nu-ance.5 In such instances the Vsuff expresses an established fact. The intensive

function of VprefS, and in a parallel development in the separate Westsemitic languages theVsuff with varying diachronic pace superseded VprefS as a narrative gram. As for Aramaic thisdevelopment was completed already in Imperial Aramaic; traces of a perfective narrativeVprefS are found only in the earliest Aramaic inscriptions (Tel Dan 2.3; KAI 202, A11; cf.TROPPER, wyqtl). In another Central Semitic language, Arabic, in the attested stages, the Vsuffgram has taken over the perfective narrative functions only in affirmative clauses, whereas in themore conservative negative clauses VprefS is still productive (lam yaqtul).

5 For the “ ‘gnomische’ Gebrauch von SK im Hebräischen”, see KOTTSIEPER, Verbalsy-

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prophetic utterance is another use of the Hebrew stative/resultative Vsuff, of-ten inadequately called “perfectum propheticum” (criticized by GZELLA, Spra-chen, 75), for which the pragmatic context usually triggers a future connota-tion: Is 9,1 h!-ˁ!m ha-h5l=k,m ba-$o&æk r!ˀ+ ˀ5r g!d5l ‘Das Volk, das durchsDunkel zieht, sieht ein großes Licht’ (WILDBERGER, Jesaja I, 363),6 and Is 52,7m! n!ˀw+ ˁal-hæ-h!r,m ragl6 m=ba((6r ‘How welcome on the mountains arethe footsteps of the herald’ (BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah, 338).7 Since VprefL can alsoexpress the future, this future meaning of the ‘prophetic perfect’ can be regar-ded as an example of “the tendency for prophetic discourse to use archaic lan-guage” (ANDERSEN, Evolution, 55).

Verbal grams may have, and often also have, multiple aspectual meanings(cf. SANDE, Perspective, 373).8 If we detect multiple meanings of a specificgram, then this indicates that the “uses are in a diachronic relation” (BYBEE,Evolution, 194).9 A resultative meaning usually represents the first (prototypi-cal) step in such a development.10 Resultative grams like the WestsemiticVsuff tend to develop into ‘anteriors’ or ‘perfects’ (ISAKSSON, Circumstantialqualifiers, 132f; ANDERSEN, Evolution, 9). The anterior meaning of the Vsuff iswidely acknowledged in Hebrew grammar and will need no further com-ment here.

The “next development for anteriors along their diachronic path is thechange from anterior to past or perfective”. A “perfective presents the situationdescribed by the clause as having temporal boundaries, as being a single, uni-fied, discrete situation”. It is not at all limited to past events. A present eventmay be viewed as bounded in a performative utterance with the Vsuff, an ex-

stem, 70.6 ‘The people that walks through darkness sees a great light!’7 As ANDERSEN, Evolution, 55, points out, this meaning of Vsuff with future time reference

is archaic rather than secondary. TROPPER, Aspektsystem, 182f, calls a gnomic shade of this sta-tive aspect, “SK für perfektiv-gnomische Sachverhalte” in accordance with his (uncalled for) ef-forts to explain all meanings of Vsuff as ‘perfective’.

8 V. D. SANDE refers to ANDERSEN, Evolution, who in his turn refers to BYBEE, Evolution.9 This achievement of the last decades of empirical linguistic research on the languages of

the world is amply described and elaborated by ANDRASON, who calls the method “the panchro-nic model” (Panchronic yiqtol, 20). Any gram develops according to strictly determined generallinguistic rules codified in functional paths: it acquires new values that correspond to subsequentstages. The “meanings that are synchronically provided by a gram reflect such well ordered uni-directional and successive diachronic stages” (ibid., 19).

10 This means that the structuralistic approach must be modified somewhat. Grams maypossess meanings of their own, even meanings that overlap the meaning of other grams. At thesame time a gram is certainly exposed to the influence from the meanings of the other grams in averbal system. Classical Hebrew possessed, for example, two grams able to express the perfec-tive aspect, the old perfective VprefS (especially in the syntagm “wayyiqtol”), and the relativelynew perfective Vsuff. This lead to a gradual development towards a system with only one per-fective in postbiblical Hebrew, Vsuff, while VprefS retained only one of its previous meanings,the so-called “jussive”.

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ample of which is the prophetic quotative frame k5 ˀ!mar YHWH ‘thus saysYHWH’ (DOBBS-ALLSOPP, Performatives, 44). Even future events can be viewedas bounded, for example expressing an ‘immediate future’ (BYBEE, Evolution,133.83.81; ISAKSSON, Circumstantial qualifiers, 134, example 137). This deve-lopment must have occurred early in Westsemitic since it is attested already inUgaritic and in Amarna Canaanite as well as in standard biblical Hebrew. The‘perfective’ meaning of the Vsuff gram in classical Hebrew is not as frequentas is often suggested, since it meets overwhelming competition by another per-fective gram in Hebrew, the Proto-Semitic and even Afroasiatic VprefS (‘shortyiqtol’, ISAKSSON, Circumstantial qualifiers, 125f).11

Thus the Vsuff gram in classical Hebrew exhibits three basic meanings:stative/resultative, anterior, perfective. Which meaning to read in a specificpassage must be inferred from the immediate pragmatic and linguistic context.

1.1.2 VprefSHebrew inherited its short prefix conjugation gram (VprefS) from Proto-Semi-tic. This grammatical morpheme may be used with three basic meanings: as ageneral present, as a modal expression (‘jussive’), and as a narrative perfec-tive. It is hard to explain the diachronic relations between the three meaningswithout supposing that the prototypical (original) meaning somewhere back inAfroasiatic times must have been a general present (ISAKSSON, Circumstantialqualifiers, 125 f).12 A general present may develop narrative functions and be-come a perfective, which is a meaning widely attested in Afroasiatic, includingAkkadian and Northwest Semitic. A general present may also take modalnuances.13

Biblical Hebrew has retained all the three basic meanings of the VprefSgram. It is one of the merits of Josef TROPPER’s article (Aspektsystem) on theancient Hebrew verbal system to have made plausible that the short Vpref ismore widely used in classical Hebrew as an indicative gram than is usually un-derstood, and “can be used in different temporal frames of reference” (BLOCH,

11 The dominance of the VprefS in the storyline of my corpus text (Judges) made me disre-gard in my previous study the less conspicuous perfective uses of Vsuff in classical Hebrew(ISAKSSON, Circumstantial qualifiers, 134).

12 The VprefS is certainly not a past tense as is often maintained (“preterite”); see for usesas a present tense, GROSS, Verbform. The temporal reference was determined by the context andnot the presence or absence of the morpheme way (BLOCH, Perfective, 36, quoting CROSS andFREEDMAN). The less conspicuous and often neglected general present meaning of VprefS inCentral Semitic is presumably a case of semantic bleaching of the prototype meaning, or of theprototypical meaning becoming more peripheral. As a result the prototype meaning becomesless salient. DAHL calls such grams “doughnut grams” (DAHL, Tense-aspect, 10).

13 The general present is often overlooked, but attested also in Akkadian with performativefunctions and gnomic meanings. Exactly the same meanings are found also in biblical Hebrew(TROPPER, Aspektsystem, 158.172-174).

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Perfective, 38). This was true also of Ugaritic, Old Canaanite (Amarna) andOld Aramaic (TROPPER, Aspektsystem, 162.172ff.177; for Aramaic also TROP-

PER, wyqtl; MURAOKA, Tel Dan, 20; KOTTSIEPER, Verbalsystem, 61).14

The normal syndetic form of the narrative VprefS gram is the way-VprefS(‘wayyiqtol’) syntagm. During the Masoretic reading tradition the syndeticmark of narrative VprefS became differentiated from the syndetic mark ofother uses of Vpref.15 Way-VprefS became the form of syndetic VprefS in nar-rative, while in other functions the syndetic VprefS was read with the currentform of the conjunction (w=- < wa-), with the consequence that the two mor-phemes (w= and way) came to be used in complementary distribution and thusshould be regarded as allomorphs rather than distinct morphemes.16 In earlyHebrew poetry there is a fairly ‘free’ use of asyndetic Ø-VprefS and syndeticway-VprefS (GIANTO, Guessing, 182; BLOCH, Perfective, 34.67), but in narrativeprose the asyndetic forms were no more productive. This stylistic tendency touse fronted syndetic VprefS forms in the storyline of narrative prose is attestedalso in other ancient Northwest Semitic languages. The w-yqtl construction inancient inscriptions has even been adduced as a “proof” of a “conversive” wawalso in Aramaic. In reality it is an indication of an oral narrative style whichuses syndetic clauses with a fronted verb form, a tendency which ancient He-brew shared with the other languages in its Northwest Semitic setting (TROP-

14 As KOTTSIEPER notes for Old Aramaic: “Besonders auffällig ist, daß die erzählendenPKK-Formen auch ohne einleitendes w gebraucht werden können”. He also observes that “das wfehlt gerade an den Stellen, wo die berichteten Ereignisse in einem besonders engen Folgever-hältnis stehen” (Verbalsystem, 61). As we have observed in ISAKSSON, Qualifiers, 117-118, syn-desis with w is essentially a neutral marking of a clause juncture. The absence of this mark (=‘asyndesis’) usually indicates a closer and more immediate semantic connection to the preced-ing clause.

15 The “retracted stress in wayyiqt5l forms was a late secondary development” (ANDERSEN,Evolution, 21, referring to REVELL, Stress, 443).

16 The gemination after wa- needs no further explanation, since it represents a widespreadphonetic phenomenon in biblical Hebrew, cf. the gemination after ma in may-yihy+ $al5m5t!w‘What comes of his dreams’ Gen 37,20. The distinction between the way- and w=- readings ofthe syndesis marker is probably a Masoretic innovation. This hypothesis is supported by the Se-cunda column in Origen’s Hexapla and by the Samaritan reading tradition (SANDE, Perspective,221-232.370; TROPPER, wyqtl, 636). This means that the way/w= difference originated in the MHperiod (thus SCHÜLE, Syntax, 129.106, note 1). In ancient Hebrew there was no distinction be-tween a way-VprefS and a we-VprefS (SCHÜLE, Syntax, 101). The specific way-pronunciation ofthe syndesis mark came to distinguish the narrative function of VprefS in a time when the lingu-istic instinct had ceased to grasp the ancient verbal syntax, in particular the distinction betweenVprefS and VprefL. It goes without saying that such an innovation introduced an element ofgrammatical analysis in the Masoretic pronunciation, which must have led to mistakes in lessconspicuous passages, since in their native linguistic competence they knew of only one yiqtoland since the verb for them expressed tense, not aspect (SANDE, Perspective, 231). TROPPER,Aspektsystem, 164ff, points out many instances where the Masoretic distinction between longand short Vpref is inconsistent. Linguistic investigation remains to be done in order to establishthe cases when the Masoretic linguistic instinct failed on this point.

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PER, Aspektsystem, 168; DEGEN, Altaramäische Grammatik, 114, note 21;PIETSCH, Tempus, 165).

The way morpheme—so often called ‘consecutive waw’—did not in itselfexpress sequentiality, progression in the narrative was instead a property in-ferred from the narrative pragmatic and textual context, which is shown tohave been the case already in the earliest Westsemitic inscriptions (SCHÜLE,Syntax, 105). Ancient Hebrew was a mainstream language among other adja-cent Central Semitic languages.17

In poetry both short and long Vpref may occur in initial as well as non-initial position of a clause as can be seen in Ps 18 in comparison with its paral-lel in 2Sam 22.18 In such contexts—and they include prophecy—VprefS issyntactically free (TROPPER, Aspektsystem, 187). In prose there are certainlymore instances of perfective Ø-VprefS than has previously been acknowl-edged,19 but it is nevertheless easy to observe that in narrative a fronted synde-tic way-VprefS became the stylistic norm.20 The Masoretic reading traditiondeveloped a secondary distinction between way and w= to help distinguish anarrative way-yiqtol (VprefS) from an imperfective w=-yiqtol (VprefL; ANDER-

SEN, Evolution, 20). In a prophetic pragmatic context the reference of a way-VprefS may be future, as in Is 9,5 where two introductory prophetic resultativeVsuff with future reference (yullad ‘is born’ and nittan ‘is given’) are elabora-ted by a short narrative with two VprefS (wat-t=h, and way-yiqr!ˀ, here en-closed within {…}): k, yælæd yullad-l!n+ b6n nittan-l!n+ {wat-t=h, ham-mi(r! ˁal-&ikm-5 way-yiqr!ˀ &=m-5 pæl8ˀ y5ˁ6%} ‘For to us a child is born, to usa son is given {and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will becalled Wonderful Counsellor}’ (NIV). This function of the VprefS to ‘elabo-rate’ or ‘expand’ a preceding clause by adding a short non-past narrative isquite common in poetry, as in Job 3,23, where the narrative elaborates a nifalparticiple and functions as an attribute in clausal form, l=-gæbær ˀa&ær dark-5nist!r! {way-y!sæk ˀæl5ah baˁad-5} ‘(Why is light given) to a man whose wayis hid {and God hedges him in}?’21 Such way-VprefS forms are usually narra-

17 For a discussion of Central Semitic, which included also Arabic, see HUEHNERGARD, Cen-tral Semitic.

18 The comparison is valuable since it proves that some asyndetic “indicative” Vpref in Ps18 are in reality short forms, since they in 2Sam 22 are syndetic with the reading way-VprefS.

19 t=subb8n! in Gen 37,7 w=-hinn6 t=subb8n! ˀalumm5t6-kæm wat-ti&ta$aw8n! la-ˀalum-m!t-, ‘and your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it’ is almost certainly such acase. It is not convincing to analyse t=subb8n! as a VprefL, since the two clauses are clearlycoordinated (VprefS + way-VprefS).

20 Sentence-initial position was the norm for past perfective VprefS also in Phoenician,which however did not require the grams to be syndetic (KRAHMALKOV, Phoenician-Punic, 292).

21 As an Arabic fa-Vsuff can (“Häufiger noch als u̯a steht fa vor Sätzen, die einen vorherge-henden erläutern”, BROCKELMANN, Grundriss II, § 302e, cf. WALTISBERG, Satzkomplex, 29).

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tive in some sense, but they do not necessarily express past time, and they donot always code a main storyline.

1.1.3 VprefLThe long prefix conjugation is the imperfective gram in biblical Hebrew (ISAKS-

SON, Circumstantial qualifiers, 136ff; TROPPER, Aspektsystem, 178ff).22 Phono-logical changes have partly obscured the morphological difference between theshort and long Vpref, but at the time when the classical Hebrew texts werecreated the native linguistic competence could still differentiate between thetwo (GIANTO, Guessing, 182). It is only to be expected that during the time ofthe Masoretic textual tradition the linguistic instinct for the distinction was lostin some passages and we therefore now and then encounter a long form whenwe expected a short and vice versa. For the same reason we sometimes en-counter a w=- conjunction in cases when we would expect a ‘narrative’ styleway-Vpref. It will be a task of Hebrew scholarship to investigate the useof distinctly short Vpref (‘VprefS!’) and the use of distinctly long forms(‘VprefL!’) and then, taking these cases as points of departure, distinguish be-tween the grams also in cases when the forms coincide morphologically (thecases of ‘VprefS*’ and ‘VprefL*’). This is not something entirely new. Bibli-cal scholars in all times have been able to distinguish between a ‘jussive’Vpref and an ‘indicative’ Vpref when the two have an identical form, ordiscern a ‘jussive’ Vpref, even when the ‘jussive’, against the rule, exhibits adistinctly long form (JOÜON-MURAOKA, p. 347, n. 3).

22 As it was also in Ugaritic (TROPPER, Sachverhalte, 157). TROPPER, Aspektsystem, 157ff,shows that there were two categories of the prefix conjugation in practically all ancient Semiticlanguages. The central Semitic long form was yaqtul-u as can bee seen in Ugaritic and classicalArabic, while Akkadian, Ethiopic and modern South Arabian have the formation iparras. Func-tionally yaqtul-u and iparras seems to have been identical, both expressing the imperfectiveaspect (ibid., 159). The “apocopation” of the VprefS in the verb class III.inf. seems to be a laterphenomenon, necessitated by the phonetically triggered fall of short final vowels, which threa-tened to wipe out the distinction between short and long Vpref. The tendency to apocopateVprefS forms of verba III.inf. remained a strong tendency and was never complete, which meansthat many “long” Vpref of verba III.inf. should be analysed as short (ibid., 167; JOÜON-MURAO-KA, §79m). The nature and origin of the imperfective VprefL is analysed in a methodologicallyground-breaking article by the linguist ANDRASON, who points out that “the semantic potential ofa gram at a given point in time is typically an amalgam of the meanings up to that particularmoment in time” (Panchronic yiqtol, 23).

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1.2 Subordination in biblical Hebrew

Hebrew is poor in specific subordinating conjunctions. Subordination of clausesis most often expressed by other syntactical means than a conjunction (NYBERG,Grammatik, §30c).23

Hypotaxis is defined by HALLIDAY as “the binding of elements of unequal sta-tus” (Introduction, 198). It was one of the results of ISAKSSON, Qualifiers, thatsubordination is often marked in Hebrew and Arabic by a shift in the basicclause structure, “CQ-marking: a pattern of ‘tense-switching’” (ibid., 121). Itis true that subordination is sometimes marked by a subordinating conjunction,but such conjunctions play a role only in a minor part of the massive interplaybetween main and subordinate clauses in classical Hebrew.24 As in early Ro-mance literature with its roots in an oral tradition, “narrative subordinationseems to be handled in large part through manipulation of categories of theverb within a predominantly paratactic main-clause structure” (FLEISCHMAN,Discourse, 869).

Subordination being defined as a shift to a clause with unequal status (incomparison with a head clause) is in Hebrew usually signalled by a ‘switch’ ofclause type (ISAKSSON, Circumstantial qualifiers, 121f). Thus, what determineshypotaxis is a contrast between two clauses, rather than any specific inherent‘subordinate characteristics’ within the subordinate clause itself. Hypotaxis si-gnifies a relation. Any full-fledged (not ‘desententialized’) subordinate clausecan be used as a main clause in another context, provided it lacks a subordinat-ing conjunction.25 There is no specific group or class of subordinate clauses inbiblical Hebrew (ibid., 4, 13-14).

23 “Hebr. är fattig på underordnande konjunktioner i egentlig mening. Satsers underordninguttryckes oftast med andra syntaktiska medel än en konjunktion.” The same observation was re-cently done by BLOCH, who points out that “clauses logically dependent on a main clause are of-ten connected to that clause asyndetically or with the conjuction w-, rather than with a formallysubordinating conjunction” (Perfective, 40, note 26).

24 It seems that in early stages of central Semitic an enhancing subordinate clause couldsometimes facultatively be fronted by a subordinating conjunction in order to avoid ambiguity.In some instances the subordinating particle can be regarded as an additional way of signalingthe subordination. In such cases hypotaxis became doubly marked: by the structural status-shift(e.g., by a ‘gram-switch’) in relation to the head clause and by the conjunction. Most subordi-nating particles in addition signify a specific semantic relation to the head clause. It is possiblethat in later diachronic stages, a) use of a conjunction became increasingly obligatory for thereader to perceive the subordination, b) the conjunction could be the only signal of the subordi-nation (without a shift in the basic syntactic structure in relation to the head clause).

25 It should be emphasized that the kind of hypotaxis in focus here is the subordinationMATTHIESSEN and THOMPSON call ‘enhancing hypotaxis’ (Discourse, 283; ISAKSSON, Circumstan-tial qualifiers, 3-4). In spite of MATTHIESSEN and THOMPSON’s reluctance to the term ‘subordina-tion’ (ibid., 286), we have decided to use this term to include also this extremely common typeof hypotaxis.

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Decisive for the clausal status in Hebrew is the verbal gram in the clause(VprefS, VprefL, Vsuff, IMP, PA, VN), or the absence of such a gram (NCl).Desententialized clauses with participles and infinitives are often involved inhypotactic clause combining, in which case they usually—but not always—function as subordinate clauses, and then in the dependent case (ISAKSSON, Cir-cumstantial qualifiers, 15-18). Desententialized clauses always represent ashift of clause type in relation to a finite clause.

The subordinate clause may precede or succeed the head. The most fre-quent case is a fronted head clause with the ‘satellite’ following.

Thus, classical Hebrew exhibits a limited number of basic clausal opposi-tions signaling subordination: Vsuff/VprefS, Vsuff/VprefL, Vsuff/NCl,VprefS/Vsuff, VprefS/VprefL, VprefS/NCl, VprefL/Vsuff, VprefL/VprefS,VprefL/NCl, VprefS/PA, VprefS/VN, IMP/Vsuff, etc. In spite of the limitednumber of basic clause types, the number of combinations is considerable,each with its own unique semantic contribution to the textual web.26

Other properties of a clause, like word order and the presence of adverbs,are important for expressing topicalization and making the temporal referenceexplicit. But they do not affect the status of the clause in HALLIDAY’s sense. Afronted clause constituent, like an initial subject, does not cause a shift of clau-sal status.

26 Examples of wp-Vsuff clauses being subordinate to a way-VprefS clause are discussed inPIETSCH, Tempus, for 2Ki 23,4-15. Such wp-Vsuff clauses are “koordinierende Perfekta” that“jeweils den Handlungsprogress unterbrechen und eine Begleithandlung oder Umstandsangabezur Haupthandlung einführen” (177.175). This type of subordinate clause relations are foundalso in the most ancient Hebrew inscriptions. SCHÜLE, Syntax, distinguishes three main subordi-nate functions of wa-Vsuff clauses in the inscriptions, 1) Vsuff may express circumstances thatoccur before the main clause: wˀnk mlkty ˀ$r ˀby wˀˁ( hbmt zˀt ‘[Und ich wurde König nach mei-nem Vater.] Da errichtete ich diese Kulthöhe’ (KAI 181, 2-3); 2) Vsuff may express the conse-quence or result of the main clause: wˀrˀ bh wbbth wy(rˀl ˀbd ˀbd ˁlm ‘Da triumphierte ich überihn und über sein Haus. [Und (so) ging Israel auf immer zugrunde]’ (KAI 181, 7); 3) Vsuff maycode a state that is concomitant with the main clause wyq%r ˁbdk wykl wˀsm ‘Da erntete deinKnecht und maß ab, [während/wobei er den Speicher füllte]’ (MHas(7):1, 4-5; RENZ-RÖLLIG I,324-325; translations by SCHÜLE). SCHÜLE’s conclusion for the Hebrew inscriptions is that it isnot possible in such cases to take a ‘basic meaning’ of Vsuff and then try to describe how thismeaning is applied to the clause- and text-levels. On the contrary, the meaning of the Vsuffclause must primarily be deduced from the context of the clauses to which it belongs. The mean-ing of the Vsuff in the syntagm we-Vsuff should not be explained in connection with the pre-fixed w=. The main difference is instead found between the use of the Vsuff in independent clau-ses, and its use in subordinate clauses where it serves “zur Angabe von Voraussetzungen, Ne-benumständen und Folgen”. Hebrew has only one Vsuff conjugation, not two. There is no “per-fect consecutive”. “Mit ihrer stativischen Funktion ist dabei ein Syntagma erhalten geblieben,das noch zum ältesten Bestand des Semitischen gehört und damit ein archaisches Element ge-genüber anderen westsemitischen Sprachen wie dem Phönizischen, Aramäischen oder Arabi-schen darstellt” (SCHÜLE, Syntax, 129-130.132.182).

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Subordination in biblical Hebrew is often coded as a gram-switch from oneclause to the other.27 Detecting subordination is not a question of identifying aspecific type of subordinate clause structure. Apart from a possible initial sub-ordinating conjunction and nominalized constructions, there are no specific‘subordinate’ clause types. A noun clause can be a main clause or a subordi-nate clause. A Vsuff clause may be subordinate or not, and the same holds fora VprefS clause and a VprefL clause. The heart of the matter is the relation be-tween a head (matrix) clause and a clause with unequal status, marked by agram-switch or with a switch to a noun clause or a nominalized clause.

Since a subordinate clause frequently lacks an initial subordinating con-junction, the specific semantic relation to the head clause often remains unex-pressed and must be inferred by the listener (and reader) from the immediatecontext (ISAKSSON, Circumstantial qualifiers, 7.10.14.19.23).

When a subordinate clause has an initial subordinating particle, the linkingbetween head and subordinate clause in many cases retains the shift of clausestructure,28 which means that a conjunction like k, often functions as an addi-tional (redundant) mark of the hypotaxis, supplied for the sake of clearness.A conjunction may also be added in order to make explicit the semanticsubordinate relation to the head (final, concessive, causal, temporal, compara-tive, etc.).

It is a fundamental weakness of the current scholarly discussion on the HebrewTAM system that the concept of subordination, so important in general lingu-istic theory, has been practically neglected, as if it played no significant role atall in the unceasing shifts of grams in biblical Hebrew clause syntax.

27 This observation is made also by TROPPER, wyqtl, 643, who puts forward Ugaritic exam-ples of the type qm y0ˁr / wy&l$mnh ‘he rised in order to prepare (food) and give him to eat’(KTU 1.3.I:4f) and says, “In diesen Syntagmen wird jeweils eine präteritale SK-Form von zweiPK-Formen gefolgt. Letztere sind – wegen des Wechsels von SK zu PK – sehr wahrscheinlichhypotaktisch an die jeweils vorangehende SK-Form angeschlossen”. Note in this example thatthe subordination is marked by the shift Vsuff/VprefL, and that the first subordinate clause isasyndetically joined to the head clause. There is no subordinating particle that signals the se-mantic relation (‘in order to’) which is inferred from the context. The two VprefL clauses areboth subordinate to the initial Vsuff clause, but mutually coordinated (the two are paratacticallyjoined). Note also that the two subordinate clauses in another context could have been normalmain clauses. The only signal of the subordination is the relation between the clause and thesubordinate clauses, marked by the gram-switch Vsuff/VprefL. TROPPER, wyqtl, 643, also givesan example from Akkadian epic of an iparras that is subordinate to a preceding iprus (VprefS +[VprefL]). For pre-classical Arabic NEBES observes that a switch from Vsuff to VprefL marks“Umstandssätze der Gleichzeitigkeit”, and that in this clausal relation “aus der syntaktischenTempusmarkierung die syntaktische Unterordnung resultiert” (NEBES, Satzschema, 80f, syndesiswith wa and fa).

28 There are certainly cases when the conjunction alone marks the subordination (without ashift clause type).

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1.3 The question of text types

Biblical Hebrew text types like narrative prose, poetry, prophecy, directspeech, etc. are often treated in the scholarly debate as if each type would ex-hibit its own grammar. It is one of the merits of Tania NOTARIUS’ article “Poeticdiscourse and the problem of verbal tenses in the oracles of Balaam” (2008) tohave questioned this unlinguistic approach. Her bold attempt to analyse a poe-tic (and prophetic!) text, the Balaam oracles, with the same methods as for nar-rative prose is commendable. She maintains that “the verbal forms in the poe-tic text should be analyzed according to the same universal semantic and prag-matic parameters as in any type of text” (ibid., 56). This is also the point of de-parture of the present author (cf. ISAKSSON, Circumstantial qualifiers, 38).

In a crosslinguistic perspective we expect a prophetic text to require thesame linguistic competence and exhibit the same grammar as found in narra-tive prose. The verb system “is grounded upon a uniform grammatical sub-stratum, both for prose and for poetry” (KORCHIN, Markedness, 338). Poetswanted to get through with their message, and used the same language and thesame grammar as in prose, though possibly within a higher register. Otherwisethey would not have been understood by their contemporaries. “Poetry showspreferences in its selection of grammatical forms from general grammar. It dif-fers from prose texts in its selections, but not in its grammatical system” (TAL-

STRA, Reading, 125, quoted from NOTARIUS, Poetic discourse, 55).NOTARIUS also questions the common notion of parallelism, the gram-

switchings of which often have been “explained” as a “poetic device” (whichis not an explanation anyway). She maintains that parallelism “has no decisiveinfluence on the semantic value of the verbal categories” (ibid., 55.59). Thegram-switchings so commonly encountered in poetry have another function.They express something. They are not only a poetic device as will be demon-strated in the present article.

The advantage of the textlinguistic approach outlined above is that it works inall text types. There is no need to work out a separate grammar for poetry, norfor prophetic texts.

2. Subordinate structures in Isaiah 52,13–53,12

The prophetic utterances about the suffering servant of YHWH leave the modernreader in doubt about the historical and temporal reference of the text. In manyother cases of prophetic speech the pragmatic context indicates to the listenerthat a future reference is to be inferred, regardless of the use of a “prophetic”Vsuff, a “prophetic” VprefS, or a “prophetic” VprefL. But in the case of the

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suffering servant we simply do not know whether he is a historic personalityamong the contemporaries of the prophet or belongs to a prophetic future.Does the prophecy refer to a future ideal personality? Most translations andcommentaries tend to emphasize a past historical setting within the lifetime ofthe prophet.29 They prefer a past reference for most of the prophecies on him,instead of the also possible present or future. This will be the approach also inthe present article. A decision for the one and the other possibility will not af-fect the conclusions in the article. In some instances of Isaiah 52,13-53,12,however, a future reference is plausible, as in 52,13, where what can be de-scribed as the “prophetic main line” is coded by distinctly long forms of theprefix conjugation (VprefL!):30

(1) Pattern: VprefL! + VprefL! + [Vsuff + Vsuff]! )* '! 4" '( +> ." " '; +O .9 1J& $" % $} '0 +# s .O $I +# LP% +<

hinn6 ya(k,l ˁabd-,; y!r+m [w=-ni((!ˀ w=-g!bah m=ˀ5d] (Is 52,13)See, my servant will act wisely, he will rise [so that he receives a high positionand is highly exalted]

As most commentators observe, the passage about the servant of YHWH—inser-ted between two exhortations to Zion (52,7-12; 54,1-17)—“begins and con-cludes with an asseveration of Yahveh that the servant, once humiliated andabused, will be exalted” (BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah, 349). In v.13 this future refe-rence is expressed by the two imperfective VprefL forms. A prophetic futurereference may also in Hebrew be achieved by an intensive Vsuff as in $!(apYHWH ˀæt z=r5aˁ qåd&-5 l=-ˁ6n6 kål-hag-g5y,m ‘YHWH lays bare his holy arm inthe sight of all the nations!’ (Is 52,10). The time reference in the imperfectiveaspect of ya(k,l and y!r+m is a more plain future expression. The two remain-ing verbs in the verse show a sudden gram-switch from VprefL to Vsuff. Whyis such a gram-switch at all employed by the prophet? If it be a “poetic device”(it is however encountered also in prose) what does this poetic device express?If we analyse the four verb forms in the verse we find that the first one, ya(k,l,is semantically different from the other three. Ya(k,l talks about the servantacting as a ma(k,l, and the clause containing this verb constitutes the wholefirst hemistich of the verse. The other three clauses concern various shades ofthe servant’s exaltation. This one-to-three semantic partition of the verse isfurther emphasized by the Masoretic reading tradition, which places the ˀatn!$before the second verb. The first half of the verse thus contains one verb, the

29 By ‘the prophet’ we refer to the one who uttered the words on the suffering servant.30 Following the practice of TROPPER (but not his symbols) we specifically mark those grams

that are morphologically distinct short forms (‘VprefS!’) and long forms (‘VprefL!’). Non-dis-tinct forms which from the context are analysed as short or long will at times be marked by anasterisk: VprefS*, VprefL*. We also follow a common linguistic practice by enclosing subordi-nate clauses within brackets (cf. LEHMANN, Typology).

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second half three verbs. This is not what we expect from a “parallelism”. Anattempt to explain the shift of grams as a “poetic device” resulting from “paral-lelism” would not be helpful. It is instead helpful to regard the two Vsuff clau-ses as in some way related to the y!r+m clause, the first clause in the secondhemistich. Except for the gram-switch itself (VprefL/Vsuff) there is no markin the text as to the nature of this relationship. The exact semantic nuance ofthe relationship must instead be inferred by the listener or the reader.

The two first verbal grams of the verse, the two VprefL! forms, are coordi-nated, although there is no initial conjunction w= in front of any of them. Itwould probably be inappropriate to talk of a storyline here in a prophetic con-text, but in some sense these two VprefL forms represent unmistakably a mainline of the prophetic utterance. The meaning is, the servant of YHWH will act asa ma(k,l and rise to high positions.

While the two VprefL clauses in (1) are coordinated without any conjunc-tion, the two Vsuff clauses are mutually coordinated and both are preceded byw=-. Thus a syndetic clause may be coordinate or subordinate, as may also anasyndetic clause. The question of syndesis has nothing to do with coordination(ISAKSSON, Circumstantial qualifiers, 117-118).31 What matters is a shift ofclause status, in this verse represented by a shift of verbal grammatical mor-pheme. The two Vsuff grams ni((!ˀ and g!bah expands and enhances they!r+m form, which means that the initial w= in w=-ni((!ˀ introduces a complexstructure that is subordinate to and related to y!r+m. By inference, the seman-tic relation of this complex to the head clause y!r+m is one of consequence,‘he will rise [so that he receives a high position and is highly exalted]’, or pos-sibly one of comparison, ‘he will rise [in such a way that he receives a highposition and is highly exalted]’.

Isaiah 52,14 exhibits a comparative clause combining of the type ‘as …, soalso …’. This clause linkage is coded by the comparative particles ka-ˀa&ær… k6n.(2) Pattern: COMP Vsuff + COMP NCl + NCl

& 3Z [% .( J< +< $Z l" 34 $9 1" 'D .& / .F +Z '<B, )( Z" '% )< J! )% +& .< M& [%P/ +# " )0 +D '< 1 $L $%kaˀa&ær &!m=m+ ˁ!l8-k! rabb,m k6n mi&$at m6-ˀ,& marˀ6-h+ w=-t5ˀar-5 mib-b=n6 ˀ!d!m (Is 52,14)Just as many were appalled by you (my people), so his appearance was disfi-gured beyond that of any man, and his form marred beyond human likeness

V.14 begins with a reference to the great exile trauma of the people of YHWH.There can be no other reasonable reference for the suffix in ˁ!l8k! than Israelitself, which were the receivers of the prophecy, the intended listeners. It is the

31 The same observation is made by RENZ and RÖLLIG (I, 209) concerning the ancient He-brew inscriptions: “Die Konj. w kann durchaus auch Hypotaxe vertreten, so daß relativisch od.kausal zu übersetzen wäre”.

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exile as the judgement of God that is in focus. Their collective memory of howthey were led into captivity must have been fresh and alive at the time of thisprophecy. The verse begins with a comparative clause combining of the type14ka-ˀa&ær Vsuff + k6n NCl NCl + 15k6n VprefL VprefL. The verb in the ka-ˀa&ær clause is a Vsuff with perfective meaning and past time reference.&!m=m+ “reflects not so much surprise or amazement in the sense of the unex-pected but rather horror at the fact of God’s judgement” on faithless Israel(WATTS, Meaning, 328). Many people were appalled, DRIVER (Servant, 103)even translates ‘were aghast’, when YHWH’s people were taken captive, andthis is compared to (k6n) people’s horror when the personality spoken of as‘my servant’ in 52,13 (the servant of YHWH) was despised and rejected by men.The two mutually coordinated noun clauses describes the state of the servant,and their time reference is taken from the pragmatic context: at some time be-fore the present moment of the prophetic utterance YHWH’s servant was disfi-gured and marred beyond human likeness, and this is compared in the versewith the humiliated state of Israel in the past when it was forced into exile byits Neo-Babylonian oppressors.

(3) Pattern: VprefL! + VprefL + [Vsuff] + [Vsuff], )(! 3\ ."1 '"MT1" 'D .&#" $4 $9Je +k +Y '"1" 'C $4 +<1 3!" 'k" '(& 3Z [%& .k pAB%P 41 3! $4J% $&& 3Z [% .#J9 +< $ZB%P 4

J0 $0MD +/ '!k6n yazz8 g5y,m rabb,m ˁ!l!w yiqp=%+ m=l!k,m p,-hæm [k, ˀa&ær l5ˀ suppar l!-hæm r!ˀ+] [wa-ˀa&ær l5ˀ &!m=ˁ+ hitb5n!n+] (Is 52,15)so he will sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because ofhim [for what has never been told them they now see] [and what they have notheard they understand]

In v.15 the comparative construction is enlarged by a renewed k6n-clause, nowwith two VprefL gram clauses (containing yazz8 and yiqp=%+). While the firstk6n-clause referred with noun clauses to an already passed state (the humilia-ted state of YHWH’s servant), the second k6n-clause refers to an unfulfilled glo-rious future, marked by two VprefL grams. This future is further qualified inthe following two Vsuff clauses with a fronted k,: kings see what they havenever been told, understand what they have never heard. In this future timeYHWH’s servant will fulfil a priestly office by sprinkling many people, andexert an earthly authority as well, in that kings will shut their mouths becauseof him, “signifying the subjugation of the arrogant kings to the servant asYahweh implements his mi&p!'” (WATTS, Meaning, 335). As the prophecy pro-ceeds in the following verses it appears that a “he” with future reference mustrefer to a body of his followers.32

32 We are aware of the intensive discussion on the verb yazz8, a verb with a puzzling mean-ing in this context. BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah, 346, who mistakenly states that the Masoretic text reads“y6zzeh” (it reads yazz8) translates ‘so he will astonish many nations’, supposing that there ex-

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Is 52,15 is similar to 52,13 in that it involves two long Vpref grams (thefirst, yazz8, is distinctly long), followed in the second hemistich by two Vsuff.In the latter hemistich (fronted by k,) there are two syndetic relative clauses,each with its own Vsuff gram (suppar and &!m=ˁ+). Each relative clause is em-bedded as an object in another Vsuff clause. As in (1) above, the two VprefLclauses code the prophetic main line, and the time reference is future. In thesecond hemistich the two Vsuff clauses (with r!ˀ+ and hitb5n!n+ respectively)signal a subordinate structure by the gram-switch VprefL/Vsuff. This subordi-nation is additionally marked by the general subordinating particle k, (NYBERG,Grammatik, §30d). The coding does not explicitly express the semantic rela-tion of the subordinate clauses to the head clause, but BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah, 345,infers from the context a causal or explanatory nuance, which is very reasona-ble: “for what was never told them they now see”, etc. The structure of thesubordinate hemistich could be simplified as k, + ObjectREL + Vsuff + ObjectREL + Vsuff. The particle k,, when used as a conjunction, marks a clause assubordinate. It may take practically all subordinating nuances that a subordi-nate clause can have in relation to a head clause (‘that’, ‘for’, ‘because’,‘since’, ‘when’, etc.). This means that k, is a neutral subordination marker(ISAKSSON, Circumstantial qualifiers, 29). A clause with a fronted conjunctionalk, is distinctly marked as subordinate, but the semantic relationship to the headis not specified, and must be inferred from the context, which all Bible transla-tors do when they render a k,-clause. Frequently the particle k, is just an addi-tional subordinating mark, in that the structure of the succeeding clause exhi-bits also a shift of status in relation to the head clause, as is shown by thegram-switch in 52,15.33

isted in Hebrew an otherwise unattested verb n!z! II, ‘jump’, hifil ‘cause to jump’ > ‘startle, as-tonish’, a reflex of the Arabic naz! ‘jump’. BLENKINSOPP translates as a hifil ‘so will he astonishmany nations’ and this resolves at least one problem, since many translations take g5y,m rabb,mas subject of the verb (thus also NYBERG, Smärtornas man, 47, and DRIVER, Servant, 92). The na-tural subject of the clause is the servant of YHWH, which is emphasized by the singular form ofthe verb (3ms). In view of all the plural forms of the verbs in this and adjacent verses (&!m=m+,yiqp=%+, r!ˀ+, &!m=ˁ+, hitb5n!n+), even when the subject is mentioned after the verb, it is cer-tainly not a natural interpretation to regard the plural g5y,m rabb,m the subject of the verb. Asfor the meaning of yazz8, also DRIVER, Servant, 92, advocates the Arabic cognate hypothesis (al-though he prefers to read an intransitive yizz8, translating ‘So now mighty nations shall be start-led’); but in the end, it cannot be made plausible that the people that were the receivers of thisprophecy would not have associated yazz8 with the most common meaning ‘sprinkle’, an activi-ty associated with the priestly office in the Pentateuch. BLENKINSOPP argues that a yazz8 with thismeaning must be constructed with the preposition ˁal (sprinkle ‘over’, or ‘on’), but as Lev 4,6.17shows, this is not necessary. All-in-all, the solution that suggests itself is that a) the servant isthe subject of yazz8 and that b) the verb speaks of ‘sprinkling’, not ‘astonishing’, many nations.It is not our intention, though, to enter into a full discussion of the crux, since it is not decisivefor the main tenets of this article.

33 A redundant use of k, as a subordination marker is amply illustrated in Psalm 18 in com-parison with its parallel in 2Sam 22. The version in 2Sam seems to represent a slightly later dia-

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The subordinate clauses that follow k, express something about the state ofthe nations and of the worldly kings when this happens: in the now of this fu-ture reference point they see something and they understand something. Thetwo Vsuff forms (r!ˀ+ and hitb5n!n+) express stative aspect concomitant withthe future event which is coded by the two previous VprefL forms.

Traditional Hebrew grammars maintain that it is the Vsuff gram precededby a “conversive waw” that expresses the future (the so-called “weqatal” con-jugation, especially as a “consecutive tense” after a future reference Vpref).But the two Vsuff verbs (r!ˀ+ and hitb5n!n+) lack any trace of a “conversive”waw and express a future reference in these subordinate clauses (which followtwo VprefL grams with future reference): the kings see at that future moment,they understand in that future event.34 What triggers the future reference of aVsuff gram is not a “conversive” waw, but a gram-switch from a future refe-rence verb (in this case VprefL) in a head clause to a Vsuff in a subordinateclause. A subordinate clause often—but not always—takes over the temporalreference of the head.35

Within the confines of the two syndetic relative clauses in (3), we can ob-serve another of the main aspectual meanings of the Vsuff: the anterior (‘whathas never been told them’, ‘what they have not heard’).

As its Arabic reflex, the Hebrew Vsuff may express a modal nuance (ISAKSSON,Circumstantial qualifiers, 131). This is shown in the first verse of chapter 53,which is followed in the next verse by a VprefS clause:(4) Pattern: Vsuff + [NCl + {way-VprefS}]

" '< ," '< 7% 3! J0 )/ $9 p< +Z '4 .9M& +HJ ! $#! +" " '<B4 .9 U! $/ $4 +I '0 4 .9 .̀ .# Y )0M` .( #" $0 $? +4 Z 3&P] .C +# c 3& 3% )< ! $̀ 'e?m, hæˀæm,n li-&m+ˁ!t-6n+ [+-z=r5aˁ YHWH ˁal-m, nigl!t! @{way-yaˁal kay-y5n6ql=-p!n-!w w=-ka&-&oræ& m6-ˀæræ% %iyy!}] (Is 53,1-2)Who would believe our message [over whom the power of YHWH has been re-vealed? {He grew up like a sapling before him, like a root in the parchedground}]

The introductory m, with Vsuff (hæˀæm,n) expresses a question, which mostcommentators take as an agent-oriented modal expression (BYBEE, Evolution,187), ‘Who would believe’ (ability). Such nuances of the Vsuff are often inap-propriately called ‘optative’ in Hebrew (and Arabic) grammars (JOÜON-MURAO-

KA, §112k; ISAKSSON, Circumstantial qualifiers, 131). It can certainly also beinterpreted closer to its prototypical stative meaning as an intensive question:

chronic stage, in which the need for an additional k, to mark subordination was felt more acutethan in Ps 18. In both versions of the psalm subordinate structures are marked by status shifts ofthe kind discussed in the present article.

34 As most commentators do, this is naturally translated by a general present; DUHM, Jesaia,365: ‘sehen sie … nehmen sie wahr’; BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah, 345: ‘they now see … they nowunderstand’.

35 Such a future nuance of a Vsuff is frequent in subordinate clauses after an imperative.

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‘Who believes our message?’, but the English present tense would exclude apast time reference, which sometimes does not accord with the context of Is49,1-6; 50,4-9 (BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah, 349). Here, in Is 53,1, time reference mustbe taken from the occasion when the prophet himself (and his prophetic group,the “we” in the text) received the astonishing message about the real identityof YHWH’s servant.

The context favours something hard to believe, and the content of this in-credible &=m+ˁ! (‘message’ or ‘what has been heard’) is displayed already inthe second hemistich: People cannot believe over whom the arm of YHWH wasrevealed (or had been revealed). As NYBERG, Smärtornas man, 48-49, has poin-ted out, v. 1b (beginning with +-z=r5aˁ YHWH) is subordinate to the clause in 1aand makes explicit the content of the message (&=m+ˁ!t-6n+). That the contentof verbs of perception and intellectual activity is coded by a circumstantialclause is a well-known phenomenon in both Arabic and Hebrew (FISCHER, Ara-bic, §434; ISAKSSON, Qualifiers, 94; NYBERG, Grammatik, §86bb). The frontedsyndetic mark in 1b (+) clarifies to the listener that a new clause begins hereand thus that the initial noun phrase z=r5aˁ YHWH cannot be a direct object of averb in 1a. V.1b (the second hemistich) consists of a noun clause (NCl) with afronted subject and a predication in the form of a prepositional phrase. Thepredicative is an interrogative clause which is formally direct (‘over whom is itrevealed?’) but intentionally indirect, so that m, has the function of a relativepronoun (‘over the one that it is revealed’, NYBERG, Smärtornas man, 49). ThisNCl expresses the content of the incredible message: the holy arm of YHWH, al-ready mentioned in 52,10, is revealed over a suffering and despised and afflic-ted person. Who could believe this? There is an implicit ‘before’ and ‘after’ inthis context: before a specific moment the prophet himself did not understandwho this afflicted person was, but afterwards he came to understand his identi-ty in relation to YHWH.

Is 53,1b, the NCl, is further elaborated in v.53,2 (5) with a short narrative,coded by only one VprefS (way-yaˁal). The Masoretic reading of the conjunc-tion (way) further underlines the narrative function of the clause, although inpoetry also Ø-VprefS forms may be used in the same function. It is instructiveto observe that this short narrative can be considered to fulfil the function of anattribute—certainly an active one—to the preceding NCl clause. The way-yaˁal clause is clearly connected to the preceding clause. The fact that thepower of YHWH is (or ‘has been’ or both) revealed over a specific person iselaborated by the story in v.2. A VprefS narrative may be used to amplify ano-ther clause or expression, as in Job 3,21 ha-m$akk,m lam-m!wæt [w=-ˀ6n-ænn+] {way-ya$p=r+-h+ mim-ma'm5n,m} ‘Who long for death, [but it comesnot]; {they dig for it more than for hidden treasures}’, where an active partici-ple clause is elaborated by a clearly narrative VprefS clause. The temporal re-ference must be taken from the context: in Job 3,21 VprefS expresses a general

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(timeless) present, in Is 53,2 the action referred to is presumably somethingthat occurred before the present reference point of the prophet-speaker (BLEN-

KINSOPP, Isaiah, 355).

The storyline coded by the way-VprefS in 53,2 is further enhanced by a num-ber of succeeding subordinate clauses, constituting noun clauses and VprefLclauses:(5) Pattern: VprefS + [NCl + NCl + [VprefL*] + NCl + [VprefL*]]

4 .9 .̀ .# Y )0M` .( #" $0 $? +4 Z 3&P] .C +# c 3& 3% )< ! $̀ 'e & .%P/B%P 4 M4 %P 4 +# & $L $! J! )% +& '0 +# ! 3% +& .<B%P 4 +# J! )L +< +F 30 +#way-yaˁal kay-y5n6q l=-p!n-!w w=-ka&-&oræ& m6-ˀæræ% %iyy! [l5ˀ toˀar l5 w=-l5ˀ h!d!r [w=-nirˀ6-h+] w=-l5ˀ marˀ8 [w=-næ$m=d-6h+]] (Is 53,2)He grew up like a sapling before him, like a root in the parched ground [havingno beauty or majesty [when we looked at him], having no appearance [that wewould be attracted by him]]

The five clauses making up the remainder of v.2 after the way-VprefS clausecan be divided into two classes: they are either noun clauses or clauses with a(presumably) long form of the prefix conjugation. The first NCl (l5ˀ toˀar l5) isfamiliar to every Arabist; the l5ˀ is used in the sense called l! li-nafyi l-;insiwhich expresses a general denial of existence (FISCHER, Arabic, §318c): ‘thereis (or was) no beauty for him’, that is, ‘he has/had no beauty’. The reference isdirectly to the subject in the preceding narrative clause (way-yaˁal …).

The next NCl (w=-l5ˀ h!d!r) is coordinated with the first NCl (same sta-tus), only lacking the presupposed preposition with personal suffix (l5) whichthe listener is supposed to supply: ‘there was no majesty (for him)’, that is, ‘hehad no majesty’.

The third NCl (w=-l5ˀ marˀ8) has the same structure as the second one:‘there was no appearance (for him)’, that is, ‘he had no appearance’. The threenoun clauses are paratactically related, each adding a new property to the sub-ject of the storyline: he had no beauty, he had no majesty, he had no ap-pearance.

The contrast between the storyline VprefS and the three NCl creates an en-hancing relationship, which puts the NCl clauses in a subordinate state. Thissubordination should be expressed in some way also in a translation. Since thereference of all three NCl clauses is to the subject in the main clause and alsoconcomitant with its action, their enhancing function is easily expressed byEnglish ing-forms (ISAKSSON, Circumstantial qualifiers, 19-21): ‘he grew up …[having no beauty, having no majesty … and having no appearance]’.

But it remains to account for the function of the two VprefL clauses in53,2. As can be seen, we cannot by morphology alone identify the two Vprefgrams as long. In this respect we are in this verse in a less favourable positionthan in 52,13 where ya(k,l and y!r+m only by the outer form could be identi-fied as VprefL. In 53,2 morphology is not enough. We must try to achieve

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something of the linguistic instinct of the original receivers of the text, andlearn from actual usage how the distinctly long forms and the distinctly shortforms work (as scholars already do when they identify morphologically non-distinct “jussives”).

Among the languages of the world, “[i]mperfective forms are typicallyused in discourse for setting up background situations” (BYBEE, Evolution, 126;ISAKSSON, Circumstantial qualifiers, 137), and this is confirmed by the frequentusage of the VprefL with this function in poetry.36 Our supposition is that thetwo Vpref forms in Is 53,2 (nirˀ6-h+ and næ$m=d-6h+) were perceived as longand functioned as clauses enhancing their respective preceding noun clauses.Their semantic relations to the heads are not, however, explicitly coded in thetext. A subordinate clause that lacks a subordinating conjunction is unmarkedas to the way it enhances the head clause. We cannot from the form alone de-tect the function of the clause, only that it enhances the head clause in someway. This can only be determined by a closer examination of the clauses in-volved in the context.

w=-nirˀ6-h+ as a main clause means ‘and we see/saw him’ (imperfectiveaspect). The semantics is related to what can be seen, and this fits nicely toboth l5ˀ toˀar l5 and w=-l5ˀ h!d!r. Possibly w=-nirˀ6-h+ is intended to enhanceboth noun clauses: ‘he had no beauty or majesty [when we looked at him]’. Atemporal nuance in relation to the head clause fits very well, although othernuances are possible (for example consequential, ‘that we would look at him’).

As for w=-næ$m=d-6h+ ‘and we are/were attracted by him’ a consequentialsemantic relation to the head clause (w=-l5ˀ marˀ8) is most probable: ‘He hadno appearance [to attract us]’.

We can observe in this example that the presence (or absence) of the con-junction w=, has nothing to do with a clause being a main line clause or a sub-ordinate clause. The particle w= concerns syndesis, but it does not concern thestatus of a clause. It just marks the boundary between two clauses.37 If there is

36 One of the less frequent examples in prose is way-y5ˀmær sibbolæt [w=-l5ˀ y!k,n l=-dab-ber k6n] ‘and he said “sibbolæt” [for he was not prepared to pronounce it correctly]’ (Judg12,6), with a distinctly long VprefL gram in the subordinate clause. VprefL in subordinate clau-ses is infrequent in biblical Hebrew prose in contrast to its frequency with this function in Ara-bic narratives. The reason is probably that ancient Hebrew never lost the old narrative functionof VprefS, and could retain more archaic habits of marking subordination in relation to the sto-ryline. Arabic, which in attested stages has already lost the VprefS as storyline marker (in affir-mative clauses), introduced the VprefL clause for setting up background situations (nicely con-trasting to the new storyline Vsuff), in addition to the still available nominalized clauses (PAand VN in the dependent case and of course the NCl). If an Arabic Vsuff for some reason had tobe used for backgrounding in Arabic, it was nearly always marked as such by an additional ini-tial particle qad or with an auxiliary k!na. A contrast fa-Vsuff/wa-Vsuff was simply not enough.The latter contrast represents an innovation and has no direct counterpart in biblical Hebrew.

37 The Hebrew style is carved out in a basically oral culture which used other signals forclause boundary than graphic punctuation marks, ISAKSSON, Circumstantial qualifiers, 36-37.

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a need to mark this boundary in a neutral way, to make clear to the listener thata new clause begins without marking anything else, then the clause is madesyndetic by wa. Syndesis and asyndesis is a matter of style. Asyndesis createsa quick, efficient, or compressed style. Asyndesis is a common feature in poe-try, but pays the price of being less clear, sometimes demanding of the listenera measure of reflection (ISAKSSON, Circumstantial qualifiers, 117). It is naturalthat syndesis came to dominate in narrative prose, since there was a greaterneed to mark clause junction for the audience, while in poetry the performer orprophet could rely more on the rhythm of the poem or the prophecy.

Let us sum up the discussion of Is 53,2. The verse begins with a narrativeVprefS which is further enhanced by five subordinate clauses on two levels.The first subordinate level is made up of 3x NCl clauses. The second subordi-nate level consists of two VprefL clauses. Thus subordinate clauses may com-bine hierarchically (they are ‘nested’), one being the head clause of a new sub-ordinate clause (ISAKSSON, Circumstantial qualifiers, 17-18). In all cases, subor-dination is marked by a shift of ‘status’ pertaining to the most fundamentalproperty of the clause: the presence or absence of a finite verb, or the verbalgrammatical morpheme used in the clause. In an oral setting, these were pro-perties of a clause that were immediately detected by even a casual listener.

If v. 2 contained three subordinate clauses referring to the subject of way-yaˁal—plus two lower level enhancing clauses—Isaiah 53,3 is a chain of noless than six subordinate clauses all of which refer to the same subject, plusone enhancing clause on a lower level (referring to a level-one subordinateclause).(6) Pattern: [PA] + [NP] + [NP] + [PP] + [PA] + [PA + [Vsuff]]

! 3H +O '0 4 .L [F .# 1" 'Z" '% Z" '% /MOP% +C .< .9JL" '# " '4PF & )f +A .< +CJ 1" '0 $k J* 3N '< ! 3H +O '0 %P 4 +# J! p0 +O .Z [F[nibz8] [wa-$adal ˀ,&,m] [ˀ,& makˀ5b5t] [w-,d+aˁ $5l,] [+-k=-mast6r p!n,mmimm-ænn+] [nibz8 [w=-l5ˀ $a&abn+-h+]] (Is 53,3)[being despised] [being rejected by men] [being a man of sorrows] [being fa-miliar with suffering] [being like one from whom men hide their faces] [beingdespised [since we esteemed him not]]

Isaiah 53,3 is a chain of participles and participle-like noun phrases forming anaddition to the subordinate noun clauses that enhanced the subject in v.2. Thenoun phrases (including the participles) constitute a common kind of desenten-tialized (non-finite) subordinate clauses (discussed in ISAKSSON, Circumstantialqualifiers, 14-19; for the term see LEHMANN, Typology). In Arabic such partici-ples in subordinate function would have been put in the dependent case (‘accu-sative’). We can see from Ugaritic that dependent case marking must havebeen the rule in early Central Semitic, but in the Hebrew available to us suchcase markings are lost (SEGERT, Ugaritic, §62.4). Of the seven clauses in (6) allexcept the last one (the Vsuff clause) have the same status in HALLIDAY’s sense.

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Some of them are syndetic (showing a fronted wa, w, +, or w=) with the clauselinkage explicitly marked, but this fact has no bearing on the status of theclause. With the main line of the prophetic utterance being identified in53,1-2a, the active participle nibz8 refers back to the subject of way-yaˁal in2a. The equal-status (coordinate) wa-$adal ˀ,&,m and ˀ,& makˀ5b5t are nounphrases in the dependent case referring back to the same subject, ‘(being) re-jected by men’ and ‘(being) a man of sorrows’, constituting a “case of a sub-stantive being used as a participle”, which is not so rare as BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah,347, presumes. The two following clauses (w-,d+aˁ $5l, and +-k=-mast6r p!-n,m mimm-ænn+) are both equal-status dependent-case participles: ‘(being) fa-miliar with suffering’, ‘(being) like one from whom men hide their faces’.38

The six subordinate participle-like clauses in Is 53,3 are mutually coordi-nate but all subordinate to the way-yaˁal clause in 53,2. The series ends with arepeated participle nibz8, which is enhanced with a qualifying clause: w=-l5ˀ$a&abn+-h+. By the switch of status (from PA to Vsuff) it expresses an expla-nation or interpretation of the state of nibz8, and the prophet surprisingly in-cludes himself among the subjects: ‘rejected, [since we esteemed him not]’.The (causal or explanatory) semantic relationship of the subordinate clause(w=-l5ˀ $a&abn+-h+) to the head clause (nibz8) is not explicitly stated in thetext. It must be inferred from the context. The time reference and aspectualmeaning of this subordinate Vsuff clause is also inferred from the historicalpragmatic context of the prophecy (past time, perfective).39

(7) Pattern: Vsuff + Vsuff + Vsuff + [PP] + [PP] + [PP], )C $% J0 )" $4 {F %J! % $> $0 J0" )OP% +C .<J 1 $4 $O +A J0 +F .0 [% .# J! p0 +O .Z [F .9JI $0 ! )( p< 1" '!6 7% ! 3* p9 +<J

ˀ!k6n $ål!y-6n+ h+ˀ n!(!ˀ +-makˀ5b6-n+ s=b!l-!m wa-ˀana$n+ $a&abn+-h+[n!g+aˁ] [mukk6 ˀæl5h,m] [+-m=ˁunn8] (Is 53,4)But he bore our infirmities, and carried our pains, yet we ourselves consideredhim [(being) stricken (by God)] [smitten by God] [afflicted]

The main line of the prophecy is resumed in Is 53,4 with three Vsuff clauses.Most commentators prefer to assume that the Vsuff grams in v.4 refer to a his-torical figure known by the prophet. In such a case the aspect is, by inferencefrom the pragmatic context, perfective, and the purpose of the text, its prophe-tic dimension, lies in a spiritual reinterpretation of the significance of the life(and probably also death) of this historical person. The coding itself is, how-

38 mast6r is analysed by H.S. NYBERG as having the original meaning of the ma-noun, thatis, a nominalized (substantivized) relative clause: ‘the one for whom one hides’, with an anapho-ric pronoun as is also required in Arabic (NYBERG, Smärtornas man, 51; NYBERG, Grammatik,§75 i). It is also possible to read hifil PA mast,r.

39 We presume, as BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah, 353, does, that the text within its original setting re-ferred to a man that was dead already when the prophetic utterance of Is 52,13-53,12 was for-mulated. This assumption is decisive for the translation of the verbal grams, which otherwisewould permit a general present or even future translation of the main line prophetic passages.

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ever, temporally ambiguous. The Vsuff grams can as well be interpreted asprophetic statives, with a possible future nuance: ‘But he bears our infirmities,and carries our pains’. This temporal ambiguity is one of the enigmatic fea-tures of this prophecy on the suffering servant of YHWH.

In the three Vsuff clauses in 53,4 objects and subjects are positioned beforethe verb in fronted position. This signals a topicalization: 1. Onoun + Spron +Vsuff; 2. Onoun + Vsuff-PRON3mp; 3. Spron + Vsuff-PRON3ms. The secondclause (+-makˀ5b6-n+ s=b!l-!m) even exhibits a ‘leftdislocation’40 with a re-sumptive (anaphoric) pronoun (the -!m). The subjects and objects are arrangedemphatically to achieve a strange duality: ‘our infirmities—he bore them, ourpains—he carried them, we on our side considered him …’. Facing this em-phatic word order it is important to observe that the type of clause remains thesame. The three Vsuff clauses are coordinated. Word order does not determinesubordination. Fronting of an element is a matter of emphasis. The constitutiveelement of a clause is the verb (or its lack of a verb).

There is a semantic opposition between the first two Vsuff clauses (the firsthemistich) and the third (wa-ˀana$n+ $a&abn+-h+), which could be perceived asa circumstantial relation (‘yet’, ‘while’). This opposition is not expressed bysubordination, but by contrasting the topicalized (explicitly stated and fronted)subjects: h+ˀ against ˀana$n+.

The third Vsuff clause (wa-ˀana$n+ $a&abn+-h+) in this prophetic main lineof Vsuff clauses in 53,4 is qualified by three subordinate clauses expressingthe content of the $!&abn+, as is common practice with verbs of intellectualactivity. The content of the activity is coded by passive participles referringback to the object suffix in $a&abn+-h+ (the suffering servant). These passiveparticiples in dependent case position function as desententialized subordinateclauses qualifying the same head clause (wa-ˀana$n+ $a&abn+-h+), telling howa ‘we’ (falsely) considered him: ‘stricken, smitten by God, afflicted’.

(8) Pattern: 4b(Vsuff + 3 x [PP] +) 5[NCl] + [NCl] + [NCl + *[Vsuff]]J0 +F .0 [% .#J! p0 +O .Z [F.9JI $0! )( p<1" '!6 7%U! 3* p9 +<J%J! +#4 $4PF +<J0 )9 $Z +k '<% $( pL +<J0" )/P0M [9 )<& .AJ<J0 )<M4 +Z #" $4 $9 M/ $& pO [F .OJ J0 $4B% $k +& '0

4b(wa-ˀana$n+ $a&abn+-h+ [n!g+aˁ] [mukk6 ˀæl5h,m] [+-m=ˁunn8]) 5[w=-h+ˀm=$5l!l mip-p=&!ˁ-6n+] [m=dukk!ˀ m6-ˁaw5n5t6-n+] [m+sar &=l5m-6n+ ˁ!l!w[+-ba-$ab+r!t-5 nirp!ˀ l!-n+]] (Is 53,4b-5)4b(yet we ourselves considered him [stricken (by God)] [smitten by God] [afflic-ted]) 5[while in reality he was pierced for our transgressions] [(he was) crushedfor our iniquities] [the punishment bringing us peace was upon him [so that byhis wounds we would be healed]]

While the last clauses of 53,4 were coded by three passive participles in thedependent case which described how the subject (‘we’) of $a&abn+-h+ looked

40 Which should properly be called ‘rightdislocation’ in a right-to-left written text.

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on the suffering servant, the clauses in 53,5 qualify the same head clause (wa-ˀana$n+ $a&abn+-h+) by stating the real function and mission of the object suf-fix referent. This is coded by three noun clauses, the status of which is sig-nalled by the first explicit pronoun in fronted position (h+ˀ), ‘in reality he was’(or is) (BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah, 345: ‘yet he was wounded because of our trans-gressions’).

The first noun clause (w=-h+ˀ m=$5l!l mip-p=&!ˁ-6n+) consists of a subjectpronoun (Spron) and predication in the form of a PP and a prepositionalphrase. It is a circumstantial clause related to $a&abn+-h+: ‘we considered himstricken (by God) … [while in reality he was pierced for our transgression]’.

In the second noun clause (m=dukk!ˀ m6-ˁaw5n5t6-n+) the subject pronounis understood from the preceding NCl. The predicate is the passive participlem=dukk!ˀ and the head clause is still wa-ˀana$n+ $a&abn+-h+: ‘(while he was)crushed for our iniquities’.

The third clause (m+sar &=l5m-6n+ ˁ!l!w) is a noun clause in which thesubject is m+sar &=l5m-6n+ (‘the punishment bringing us peace’) and the predi-cation consists of a prepositional phrase (ˁ!l!w), the suffix of which refersback to the head clause. This third clause enhances the same head clause as thepreceding two noun clauses: ‘(in that) the punishment bringing as peace wasupon him’.

We perceive that the three PP clauses in v.4 and the three NCl clauses inverse 5, although qualifying the same head clause, have divergent semanticfunctions. The passive participles in the dependent case are directly connectedwith the suffix of the verb $a&abn+-h+. They code the content of the convic-tion: ‘(we considered him) stricken—smitten—afflicted’. The three NCl clau-ses have a more general circumstantial function. They inform the listener ofthe real state of things which could not be seen by human eyes: ‘in reality itwas for our transgressions, for our iniquities, for our peace’.

The fourth (and last) clause of 53,5 contains a Vsuff (nirp!ˀ) which has aneutral subject (‘it is/was healed (for us)’). Formally it could also be a nifalparticiple but a Vsuff seems more probable (thus HALOT in this location).41 Ifnirp!ˀ is not a substantivized participle (‘that which is healed’ > ‘a healing’, inwhich case the clause would be a noun clause, ‘a healing belongs to us by hiswounds’), which seems unlikely, the most natural interpretation is to take it asa finite verb. We then interpret the clause (+-ba-$ab+r!t-5 nirp!ˀ l!-n+) as con-sequential in relation to its head (m+sar &=l5m-6n+ ˁ!l!w) with a contrastivepattern NCl + [Vsuff]: ‘so that we found healing by his wounds’, or final, ‘thatwe would find healing by his wounds’. In subordinate position a Vsuff clause,

41 A native contemporary listener would have perceived the correct interpretation in a mo-ment, of course. We later readers have to exercise caution, trying to get aquainted as best as wecan with the clause combining habits of prophetic utterances.

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because of the prototypical stative/resultative meaning of the gram, can easilyenhance a noun clause and receive a futural or modal nuance.

In Isaiah 53,6 we return to the prophetic main line with three Vsuff clauses.(9) Pattern: Vsuff + Vsuff + Vsuff

J0 $K p( ,%P _ .( J0" '9 $f Z" '% M( +& .L +4 J0" '0 $k ! $#!" .# .9" 'T +? '! MD / )% ,M [9 J0 $K p(kull-!n+ ka%-%5ˀn t!ˁ,n+, ˀ,& l=-dark-5 p!n,n+, wa-YWHW hipg,aˁ b5 ˀ6t ˁaw5nkull-!n+ (Is 53,6)we all, like sheep, went astray, each of us turned to his own way, but YHWHcaused the iniquity of us all to fall on him

The historical interpretation of the text on the suffering servant here triggers aperfective interpretation of the Vsuff clauses with past time reference,42 al-though many prophetic utterances with Vsuff in the main line express an inten-sive general present (stative aspect) with an implied future nuance (see 1.1.1Vsuff above), as in Is 9,5 k, yælæd yullad l!n+ b6n nittan l!n+ ‘For to us achild is born, to us a son is given’ (NIV). In fact, a plethora of time referencesare attested for Vsuff in the prophetic main line of Is 52-53: modal, Is 53,1 m,hæˀæm,n li-&m+ˁ!t-6n+ ‘Who would believe what we have heard?’; past time(and perfective aspect), Is 53,4 ˀ!k6n $ål!y6n+ h+ˀ n!(!ˀ ‘Yet it was he whobore our affliction’; intensive present (stative aspect), Is 52,7 m!lak ˀæl5h!yik‘Your God reigns as king!’ (all translations from BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah).

There is strong emphasis on the fronted subjects of the first and third clau-ses: ‘We all … YHWH on the other hand …’. This topicalization creates an op-position between the weak “we” and the strong YHWH.

(10) Pattern: Vsuff + [NCl + [VprefL]] + [NCl + [VprefL]] + [NCl +[Vsuff]] + [VprefL]

> .T '0 %J! +# ! 30 [9 .0 %P 4 +# #" 'kBF .f +? '" ! 3} .( F .O 3r .4 4 $OJ" 4 )F $& +CJ " )0 +? '4 $!" 3H +HPI ! $< $4 7% 30 %P 4 +# F .f +? '" #" 'knigga( [w=-h+ˀ naˁan8 [w=-l5ˀ yipta$-p,w]] [ka(-(8 [la'-'æba$ y+b!l]] [+-k=-r!$6l [lipn6 g5z=z8-h! næˀæl!m!]] [w=-l5ˀ yipta$ p,w] (Is 53,7)he was oppressed [yet being submissive [in that he opened not his mouth]],[being like a lamb [when it is led to the slaughter]], [like a ewe [being silent be-fore her shearers]] [without opening his mouth]

In Isaiah 53,7 the prophetic main line continues in Is 53,7 with only one word,the Vsuff clause nigga(. The rest of the verse is a series of clauses that in diffe-rent ways enhance this nigga(. Three of them are mutually coordinate and re-present the first level of subordination in relation to nigga(, coded by the con-trast Vsuff/NCl: ‘he was oppressed [being …] [being …] [being …]’. Belowwe discuss these three noun clauses and their satellites.

42 It is certainly also possible, as BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah, does, to translate with an anterioraspect, ‘We had all gone astray like sheep’. The real semantic difference is very slight in thiscase.

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NCl 1. w=-h+ˀ naˁan8 is a noun clause with a subject pronoun and nifal par-ticiple as predicate. The participle is formally a PA but the nifal conjugationmakes it semantically equivalent to a passive participle and an adjective.While the head clause nigga( tells about the objective course of events (‘hewas oppressed’), w=-h+ˀ naˁan8 describes the inner attitude of the servantwhen he was oppressed (or abused): ‘being submissive’. This noun clause isitself further enhanced, which is coded by a switch NCl/VprefL*, in which theclause [w=-l5ˀ yipta$ p,w] adds a significant detail of the submissive attitude,an aspect of the naˁan8: ‘not opening his mouth’. The imperfective VprefLgives the clause a nuance of durativity or endurance: while being submissivethe servant never opened his mouth.

NCl 2. ka(-(8 is a noun clause in which only the predication is coded,while the subject h+ˀ—explicit in the preceding circumstantial clause w=-h+ˀnaˁan8—is dropped as understood, ‘(he is) like a lamb’, the ‘he’ of course re-ferring to the subject of the main line nigga(. This first level subordinateclause (ka(-(8) is qualified by a VprefL clause [la'-'æba$ y+b!l], which couldbe taken as an asyndetic relative clause: ‘which is led to the slaughter’. Theanalogical structure of the preceding two clauses, in which the w=-l5ˀ yipta$p,w cannot, because of the w=, be analysed as a relative clause, speaks in fa-vour of taking also la'-'æba$ y+b!l as a circumstantial: ‘when it is lead to theslaughter’. The imperfective VprefL here expresses the process of being lead(unfinished action).

NCl 3. +-k=-r!$6l is a noun clause of the same type as ka(-(8, with an un-derstood subject pronoun, ‘(he is) like a ewe’. In relation to the head clause(nigga() it takes a subordinate meaning, ‘(being) like a ewe’, the subordationbeing coded by the contrast Vsuff/NCl. The noun clause is further qualifiedby a Vsuff clause (lipn6 g5z=z8-h! næˀæl!m!), in which the nifal 3fs Vsuff(næˀæl!m!) is close to a stative: ‘she is silent’. The contrast NCl/Vsuff createsa subordination that expresses the attitude of the ewe while being sheared,‘being silent before her shearers’.

The last clause in Is 53,7 is a repetition (w=-l5ˀ yipta$ p,w) and seemsunnecessary. It is doubted by BHS and many commentators, probably withjustice (DRIVER, Servant, 94). If original, as BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah, 347, maintainson the basis of LXX, Vulgate and the Qumran Isaiah Scroll 1QIsaa, it cannotrefer to the r!$6l (feminine), nor possibly to the subject of nigga( (which is al-ready qualified by such a clause), and a reference to (8 would be even morefar-fetched. The only solution, if original, is that it is a repetition that summari-zes the preceding subordinate clauses as ‘in a nutshell’, being directly relatedto nigga( with the contrast Vsuff/VprefL.

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In Isaiah 53,8 the prophetic main line is resumed by a Vsuff luqq!$ (with pau-sal reading).(11) Pattern: Vsuff + [VprefL + [k, + Vsuff]]

& 3eP9 )< V $k +Z 'N '<J F $x p4 M&M;B/ 3% +# " '< .F )FM> +" " '( & .H +I '0 c 3& 3% )< 1" '̀ .F 9 .Z 3k '< " 'N .9 9 .I 30 M< $4m6-ˁo%ær +-mim-mi&p!' luqq!$ [w=-ˀæt d5r-5 m, y=(5$6a$ [k, nigzar m6-ˀæræ%$ayy,m mip-pæ&aˁ ˁamm-, nægaˁ l!m5]] (Is 53,8)by oppression and judgment he was led away [—who gave a thought to his fate[when he was cut off from the land of the living, from those for which the trans-gression of my people was a disaster (leprosy)]?]

After the main line, the first clause (w=-ˀæt d5r-5 m, y=(5$6a$) is a rhetoricalquestion, the real meaning of which is that nobody cared when the servant wastaken away. The function of w=-ˀæt d5r-5 m, y=(5$6a$ and of the whole verseis to emphasize the loneliness of the servant when he was unjustly taken away,and that he was cut off also from his own people, from those who cared aboutthe transgression of ‘my people’ (Israel): He was unjustly led away [nobodycaring about his fate].43 The subordination is marked by a shift from main lineVsuff to the imperfective y=(5$6a$ (VprefL): ‘(no one) giving a thought (tohis fate)’.

The VprefL clause is further qualified by a k,-clause with Vsuff and perfec-tive aspect. Thus, the subordination is doubly marked, by the particle k,, andby a gram-switch VprefL/Vsuff. The most difficult phrase in the k, clause isthe apposition which repeats the min-phrase: ‘(… cut off from the land of theliving), from …’. After the second min there is an asyndetic relative clauseparallel to ‘the land of the living’: ‘from (those such as) my people’s transgres-sion was a disaster for them’. This archaic type of compressed clause withoutrelative pronoun has been discussed by NYBERG (Deuteronomion, 330ff; Smär-tornas man, 55) who refers to the parallel example in Deut 33,2, mi(-(6ˁ,r l!m5‘from those to which Seir belongs’.

Isaiah 53,9: When the prophetic main line in Is 53,8 (the Vsuff luqq!$) is to beelaborated by a narrative storyline, although very short, this is done by aVprefS (as in Is 53,2), and the perfective meaning is explicitly emphasized bythe Masoretes with the reading way (< wa) instead of w= in front of the verbalgram (way-yitten). Unfortunately it is impossible in English to render thedistinction between the perfective luqq!$ in the prophetic main line andthe elaborating narrative perfective storyline way-yitten. Both grams must betranslated with a simple past tense.44

43 d5r = ‘fate’ is certainly a crux and unattested elsewhere in biblical Hebrew, although NY-BERG compares Ps 24,6. We follow here a common opinion, comparing for this unexpectedmeaning Akkadian dûru ‘lasting state’, and Arabic dawr ‘role (in life)’ (DRIVER, Problems, 403;DRIVER, Servant, 94; NYBERG, Smärtornas man, 53; BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah).

44 The distinction is discussed by GIVÓN in his Syntax, vol. I, 298f. This alternation between

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(12) Pattern: { VprefS + [NCl] + [CONJ + Vsuff + [NCl]] }, )f '̀ .# 1" '9 $Z +&B/ 3% M& +O 'Y &" 'Z $9B/ 3% +# #" $/P< +D 4 .9 A $< $FB%P 4 ! $> $9 %P 4 +# ! $< +& '< #" '? +D

{way-yitten ˀæt r=&!ˁ,m qibr-5 [w=-ˀæt ˁ!&,r b=-m5t-!w] [ˁal l5ˀ $!m!s ˁ!(![w=-l5ˀ mirm! b=-p,-w]] } (Is 53,9){they assigned (him) a grave with the wicked [—yet in his death (it) was with arich man—] [though he had done no violence [without any deceit in hismouth]] }

The neutral subject of yitten, ‘one, the one that is concerned’, can be singularin Semitic, but must be translated ‘they’ in English. The later Qumran version1QIsaa has the easier reading wytnw, but emendation is not necessary (NYBERG,Smärtornas man, 56; DRIVER, Servant, 95; RUBINSTEIN, Variant Readings, 92).

The following clause (w=-ˀæt ˁ!&,r b=-m5t-!w), as it stands, is a nounclause the subject of which is understood from the preceding clause. This sub-ject is qibr-5 ‘his grave’, while the predication is ‘with a rich in his death’. Theclause tells that the grave of the servant was with a rich person ‘in his death’.The meaning of ˀæt is that of the preceding clause, ‘with’ wicked men, here‘with’ a rich. The expression b=-m5t-!w should be analysed as semanticallyequal to b=-m5t-5 ‘in his death’ as LXX translates it and BHS proposes. Theplural of b=-m5t-!w can be taken as analogical with the plural b=-$ayy-!w ‘inhis life’ (NYBERG, Smärtornas man, 57f). The clause w=-ˀæt ˁ!&,r b=-m5t-!w isa noun clause in which the subject is understood. The clause qualifies the pre-ceding proposition, and this is coded by the contrast VprefS/NCl. This clausehas been argued to be “unintelligible” (BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah, 348), but the truthis that we know nothing about the historical person referred to in Is 53, exceptwhat the text itself states. The text says that the servant was assigned a gravewith wicked men, while in his death the grave was with a wealthy man. It cer-tainly sounds strange, but we are not in a position to assign a truth value to thisproposition.

The next clause (ˁal l5ˀ $!m!s ˁ!(!) begins with the rarely used conjunc-tion ˁal ‘though’, which makes explicit the semantic relation to the head (way-yitten …): ‘they assigned him a grave … though he had done no violence’.Thus the subordinate status of ˁal l5ˀ $!m!s ˁ!(! is marked both by an explicitsubordinating conjunction and a contrast VprefS/Vsuff. The listener infersfrom the context that the Vsuff has the anterior aspect, with a reference pointin the past. It is thus to be translated by pluperfect, ‘though he had done noviolence’.

The last clause [w=-l5ˀ mirm! b=-p,-w] is a noun clause in which the sub-ject is negated (the existence of mirm! is denied) and the predicate is a prepo-sitional phrase (b=-p,-w): ‘there is/was no deceit in his mouth’. With the con-

two grams, VprefS and Vsuff, that both could express perfective, is an original Westsemitic fea-ture which is retained in biblical Hebrew but lost in Aramaic (except for the earliest inscriptionsof Tel Dan and Zakkur) and Arabic.

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trast Vsuff/NCl this noun clause qualifies or enhances the preceding Vsuffclause (ˁal l5ˀ $!m!s ˁ!(!) by stating ‘having no deceit in his mouth’ or ‘with-out any deceit being in his mouth’.

The clauses in Is 53,9 are nested on three levels: the primary level is codedby the way-yitten clause. The secondary level is coded by w=-ˀæt ˁ!&,r b=-m5t-!w and ˁal l5ˀ $!m!s ˁ!(!, both of which relate to the way-yitten clause. Thetertiary level is coded by w=-l5ˀ mirm! b=-p,-w which qualifies a clause on thesecondary level (ˁal l5ˀ $!m!s ˁ!(!). Lastly, it should be remembered that theprimary level VprefS clause—and with it the whole v.9—elaborates the Vsuffluqq!$ in 53,8.

Isaiah 53,10 is “the despair of the exegete” (BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah, 354) and asusual in such instances emendations abound in the exegetical literature. Wewill examine below if the text is successful in communication and whether itaccords with available linguistic data.(13) Pattern: Vsuff + Vsuff + [VprefL! + VprefL! + VprefL! + VprefL*]

! $#!" .# c )? $F M% +( .; " '4 7F 3! 1" '> $fB1 '% 1 $Z $% MZ +? .0 ! 3% +& '" 9 .& 3H W" '& [% ." 1" '< $" c 3? )F +# ! $#! +" ML $" +D F $4 +e '"wa-YHWH $!pe% dakk=ˀ-5 hæ$æl, [ˀim t!(,m ˀ!&!m nap&-5] [yirˀ8 zæraˁ] [yaˀar,ky!m,m] [w=-$epæ% YHWH b=-y!d-5 yi%l!$] (Is 53,10)YHWH delighted in crushing him, he brought sickness upon him [for when hissoul presents a guilt offering] [he will see an offspring] [and prolong his days][and the YHWH’s purpose will prevail through him]

The prophetic main line continues in Is 53,10 with two coordinate Vsuff clau-ses.45 The first (wa-YHWH $!pe% dakk=ˀ-5) is rather simple and states that YHWH

wanted, or took delight in, crushing the servant. The second Vsuff clause(hæ$æl,) is a hifil, either an archaic form showing a primitive 3rd radical(JOÜON-MURAOKA, §79c), or an analogical formation after verb class III.ˀ (BAU-

ER-LEANDER, 1922, 424; JOÜON-MURAOKA, §79 l; HALOT).46 In either case theplain meaning is ‘make sick’, ‘bring sickness’. The object of the hæ$æl, Vsuffclause, ‘(upon) him’, must be understood from the first clause (the object suf-fix in dakk=ˀ-5).

The third clause (ˀim t!(,m ˀ!&!m nap&-5), taken as it is coded in the Maso-retic text with the particle ˀim, is most naturally interpreted as a protasis in aconditional clause combining. Let us leave out of focus the question of apodo-sis for the moment and concentrate on this protasis. The clause is regarded asone of the greatest problems in Old Testament exegesis. It is certainly worth

45 This is also the opinion of DRIVER, Problems, 403, who, however, wants to add a pro-nominal suffix after hæ$æl, reading hæ$æl,-!m5 which he translates ‘and made him to suffer’,the verb then being of the root $lˀ.

46 1QIsaa shows instead #!44F"#, which must be read as a piel way-VprefS of the root A$ll,‘he pierced him’, with an explicit object suffix. The Qumran variant suggests that a shift fromVsuff to narrative way-VprefS was perceived to be more in accordance with the usual biblicalsyntax.

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the effort of a closer look. The second word is a distinctly long form of theprefix conjugation (VprefL!). Thus we should expect an imperfective aspecthere, though in a subordinate clause status. One problem is its subject. Formal-ly, it can be either 2 person masculine (‘you’) or 3 person feminine (‘she’). Inthe immediate context there is no ‘you’ to refer to, but there is a 3 person femi-nine entity in the clause: nap&-5 ‘his life/soul’. The least complicated analysisis thus to take nap&-5 as the subject of t!(,m. The clause would then say (with-in a protasis) that ‘his soul will lay down a guilt offering’, understanding thatthe guilt offering is the life of the suffering servant. This is a plausible inter-pretation, having in mind that he is the one that YHWH wanted to crush andmade to suffer in the preceding main line clause. His life shall present a guiltoffering. This is the most straightforward interpretation of the clause.

A clause with an initial ˀim is the most common way in biblical Hebrew tocode a real condition, which means that the condition is considered realisticand expected (JOÜON-MURAOKA, §167c). Such a condition is expected to be ful-filled, or at least it belongs to the real world of what may happen in the future.A real condition may well be translated beginning with ‘when …’ instead of‘if …’ (the latter, in English, is more open as to the expected fulfilment of thecondition). Taken as a real case protasis the clause may be translated ‘when hissoul presents a guilt offering’.

If ˀim marks the protasis, we most naturally expect to encounter an apodo-sis in what follows after the protasis. This is also the case. The rest of 53,10 isa series of mutually coordinate VprefL clauses, all except the last one with dis-tinctly long forms (VprefL!). There is no reason to analyse yi%l!$ otherwise, soall three are of equal status and represent the apodosis, the consequence, whathappens when the condition (presenting a guilt offering) is fulfilled.

The first apodosis (yirˀ8 zæraˁ) speaks about a ‘he’, who will see posterity.The ‘he’ must have the same referent as the suffix in nap&-5 in the protasis,that is, the referent is the suffering servant: when his life/soul lays down a guiltoffering he will see posterity.

The second apodosis (yaˀar,k y!m,m) says that he will prolong his day.This is puzzling only when taken to mean that he will live a long physical life,since he is already dead when the prophecy is uttered. However, if it meansthat his life and mission will continue through his followers and disciples it isnot hard to understand (BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah, 355). The two apodosis clausesanalysed so far then say that when his soul lays down itself as guilt offering hewill see a posterity of disciples and live long through them.

The third apodosis (w=-$epæ% YHWH b=-y!d-5 yi%l!$) has a fronted explicitsubject (which means it is topicalized): the will or pleasure or purpose ofYHWH. It says that the will of YHWH will prevail through the suffering servant.The will of YHWH will prevail through his followers as a consequence of theguilt offering.

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All-in-all there are six clauses in Is 53,10, of which two (the Vsuff clausesin the beginning) belong to the prophetic main line, while the remaining fourbelong to a block of subordinate clauses in a conditional clause linkage. Thissubordinate block has a purpose of enhancing the main line by explaining theharsh content of the Vsuff clauses. It is therefore in full accordance with thesyntax to insert a ‘for’ or ‘because’ before the protasis in the English transla-tion in order to account for the clause-linkage refinement exhibited in the He-brew text: ‘for when his soul lays down a guilt offering …’.

The remaining verses of our text (11-12) follow up the consequences of the de-cisive protasis in Is 53,10. From a syntactic perspective they can be analysedas coordinate with the three apodosis VprefL clauses in 53,10.(14) Pattern: [VprefL! + VprefL* + VprefL! + [ADJ] + VprefL*]

4 .< [9 )< MZ +? .0 ! 3% +& '" 9 $D +> '" Mf +9 .L +D Y" '; +e ." Y" '; .e " '; +O .9 1" 'D .& $4 1 $/P0M [9 .# %J! 4PD +A '"[m6-ˁamal nap&-5 yirˀ8] [yi(b!ˁ b=-daˁt-5] [ya%d,q [%add,q] ˁabd-, l!-rabb,m][wa-ˁaw5n5t-!m h+ˀ yisb5l] (Is 53,11)[After the suffering of his soul he will see light] [and be satisfied by knowledgeof him] [[Being righteous] my servant will justify many people] [and he alonewill bear their iniquities]

Isaiah 53,11 contains four VprefL clauses, all expressing the consequences, orresults, or achievements, of the guilt offering of the suffering servant describedin v.10.

The first clause (m6-ˁamal nap&-5 yirˀ8) is a puzzle.47 The subject that pre-sents itself immediately is the one told of in the preceding verse, the sufferingservant. But in such a case, when interpreting the yaˀar,k y!m,m clause in53,10 we had to infer an identity between the servant himself and his disciples.The prophet who uttered these verses knew that the servant was dead (this isour assumption), so also in v.53,11 the identity must be transferred to his dis-ciples. For clarity’s sake we late readers would have preferred that the prophetused plural forms here, but he has presumably preferred to retain the formalunity between the servant and the body of his followers. By them he is stillworking and justifying many. The verb (yirˀ8) can be used with an absolutemeaning without object, ‘be able to see’. When translating this into English itis nearly impossible to render the absolute meaning without doing as both theQumran versions have done, add the word ‘light’ (1QIsaab ˀ5r; BLYTHIN, Consi-deration, 28): ‘… he will see light’.

Defining the finis boundary of the second clause (yi(b!ˁ b=-daˁt-5) is noteasy and the one presented here violates the Masoretic reading tradition (whichputs a light distinctive accent (z!q6p q!'5n) on yi(b!ˁ which is also read in

47 For our discussion of clause combining the meaning of the preposition min is not essen-tial. It can be partitive, ‘out of, from’ or temporal, ‘after’. The latter seems to be the preferredmeaning by most commentators (cf. BLYTHIN, Consideration, 28).

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pause with lengthened !). A w= would have been of great help as mark of thefollowing clause junction, but the next clause is asyndetic. We have to rely onthe inner analysis of the clauses themselves. There are several reasons for areinterpretation of the clause borders. First, if we hold to the Masoretic accent,as BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah, 346, and some other commentators do, the secondclause will be conspicuously short, only one word (yi(b!ˁ), while the otherclauses in the verse contain at least three words. Secondly, the succeedingclause already contains an adverbial qualification (%add,q), to which we willreturn below; it does not seem to need the prepositional phrase b=-daˁt-5.Thirdly, the verb (!baˁ is attested with the preposition b= elsewhere in MTwith the meaning ‘have enough of’, in Ps 65,5; 88,4, Lam 3,30 (thus also MÜL-

LER, Vorschlag, 379). Fourthly, the Masoretic reading tradition, although ofgreat value, did not exist at the time of the prophecy about the suffering ser-vant. From a linguistic point of view we want to get as close as possible to theoriginal wording of the prophet, and at that time there were no accent signs,nor a division into verses. The most natural reading is to interpret b=-daˁt-5 asconnected with yi(b!ˁ: ‘be satisfied by knowledge of him’, that is, though theservant is dead, they—his body of followers—will be satisfied by his life ex-ample and his teaching.48

The third clause in Is 53,11, ya%d,q [%add,q] ˁabd-, l!-rabb,m, has con-founded a horde of commentators, and a majority wants to omit %add,q since it“overburdens the verse” (BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah, 348) and is felt unnecessarysince b=-daˁt-5 is already there and qualifies the verb. Without b=-daˁt-5,which belongs to the second clause (see above), the adjective %add,q in thethird clause is no longer redundant and functions as an adverbial qualifier inthe dependent case (JOÜON-MURAOKA, §126a): ‘(being) righteous’. This is awell-known construction in Arabic where a nominal qualifier typically lacksthe article and is put in the accusative case (FISCHER, Arabic, §380). The adjec-tive should be taken as giving the reason why the servant can justify the many:‘[Since he was righteous] my servant will justify (or vindicate) many people’.

The last clause of Is 53,11 (wa-ˁaw5n5t-!m h+ˀ yisb5l) is coordinate withthe preceding one and adds to its prediction. ‘He was righteous, and will alonebear the iniquities of the many.’ The subject pronoun h+ˀ is topicalized, but

48 This is also the conclusion by WILLIAMSON, Daˁat, 120; BLYTHIN, Consideration, 28; andMÜLLER, Vorschlag, 379, who advocate a reading of yi(b!ˁ together with b=-daˁt-5 as the mostnatural interpretation. WILLIAMSON prefers to translate ‘he will be satisfied with his rest’. But it isextremely difficult to believe that this otherwise unattested meaning of daˁat belonged to the lin-guistic competence of the contemporaries of the prophet, side-by-side with the very common‘knowledge’, cf. daˁat ˀæl5h,m ‘knowledge of God’, Hos 4,1; 6,6, Pr 2,5. The same argumentholds against the meaning ‘humiliation’ proposed by BLYTHIN, Consideration, 30, althoughCLINES-ELWOLDE, 459, adduces this meaning for Dan 12,4 (but not for Is 53,11). BLYTHIN disre-gards that what we expect in this context after yi(b!ˁ is something positive, a glorious conse-quence of the travail of the servant of YHWH.

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even more is the object which is put in primary position: ‘their iniquities, healone will bear (them)’.

Isaiah 53,12 opens with two VprefL clauses coordinate with those in 53,11.The verse therefore belongs to the cluster of clauses that follow the two Vsuffclauses (wa-YHWH $!pe% dakk=ˀ-5 hæ$æl,) in 53,10, the main design of which isa VprefL gram.49 Strictly speaking they continue the apodosis clauses after theprotasis ˀim t!(,m ˀ!&!m nap&-5 in 53,10. Is 53,12 thus continues to qualify—and explain the consequences of—the will of YHWH to crush and bring sicknessupon his servant. An explicative nuance is given the first clause by the initialadverb l!k6n ‘therefore’.(15) Pattern: [VprefL + VprefL + [CONJ + Vsuff + Vsuff + Vsuff +[VprefL!]] ]

, )C $4M4BY 3K .F [%1" 'D .& $O1" '<Je [9B/ 3% +#Y )K .F +"4 $4 $Z/ .F .f& 3Z [%! $& 79 3!/ 3# $N .4MZ +? .01" '9 +ZPkB/ 3% +#! $0 +< '0 %J! +# 1" 'D .&B% +V )F % $> $0 1" '9 +ZPk .4 +# .9" 'T +? ."

l!k6n ˀa$allæq l5 b!-rabb,m w=-ˀæt ˁa%+m,m y=$alleq &!l!l [ta$at ˀa&ær hæˁær!lam-m!wæt nap&-5] [w=-ˀæt p5&=ˁ,m nimn!] [w=-h+ˀ $6tˀ rabb,m n!(!ˀ [w=-lap-p5&=ˁ,m yapg,aˁ]] (Is 53,12)Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, he will divide the bootywith the strong [in return for that he poured out his soul unto death] [was num-bered with the transgressors] [and himself bore the sin of many [while he madeintercession for the transgressors]]

The two VprefL clauses continue from v.11 describing the exaltation of theservant. The voice of YHWH in the mouth of the prophet with a l!k6n ‘there-fore’ and a continued VprefL ˀa$allæq announces the future result or reward ofthe preceding protasis (‘when his soul lays down a guilt offering’). The servantwill in the future be greatly honoured; YHWH himself declares that he will givehim a portion among the great.

But the third clause (ta$at ˀa&ær hæˁær! lam-m!wæt nap&-5) is not onemore in the apodosis series of coordinate VprefL clauses. It is subordinate tothe preceding two coordinate VprefL clauses, and this is shown, not only by agram-switch (VprefL/Vsuff) but also by a complex subordinating conjunction(ta$at ˀa&ær) which makes the semantic relation to the preceding clauses expli-cit, ‘in return for, because’ (the relation being a type of causality). The con-junction makes clear to us—if context were not enough—that the three coordi-nate Vsuff clauses to follow the conjunction do not code a resumed propheticmain line, but must be taken as qualifying the preceding VprefL clauses withthe nuance ‘in return for’.

The three subordinate Vsuff clauses after ta$at ˀa&ær emphasize what is al-ready expressed as a condition in 53,10. The servant has fulfilled the condition

49 To avoid too many confusing brackets we have refrained from enclosing also the wholeverse with brackets ([…]) in the transcription and translation.

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(to present himself as a guilt offering) and in return for his pouring out his soulunto death (lam-m!wæt) he will be greatly honoured. Since he is dead, thisglory must be interpreted as pertaining to his body of disciples.

Isaiah 53,12 thus prophesizes about a future reward, a future glory, whichwill be allotted to YHWH’s servant in the shape of his body of followers, in re-turn for what he has done in his life and death. The shift to Vsuff clauses inthis verse also marks a shift from future time to past time. The imperfectiveVprefL by inference denotes the future, while Vsuff by inference in this con-text denotes past time with an anterior or perfective aspect.50

The third Vsuff clause (w=-h+ˀ $6tˀ rabb,m n!(!ˀ) has a topicalized subjectpronoun (h+ˀ). It is topicalized in two ways: 1) by being explicitly stated (theinformation about the subject is redundant), 2) by being fronted. Its positionindicates a strong emphasis that YHWH’s servant himself alone bore the sin ofmany. This Vsuff clause is further qualified by a VprefL! clause (w=-lap-p5&=ˁ,m yapg,aˁ). From the context we infer that its semantic relation to theVsuff clause is most probably circumstantial and concomitant with the headclause, ‘while interceding for the transgressors’. No other enhancing relationto the preceding Vsuff clause seems to fit the context.

The analysis of the text about the suffering servant presented above shows thatthe old Hebrew syntax was well fitted to express clause junction and clause re-lations without help from the written Masoretic accents, mostly also withoutspecific subordinating particles. It possessed a clause combining strategy thatwas entirely orally concipiated. The Masoretic verse division and the other ac-cents represent an additional and redundant system of punctuation marks. Theoriginal text, even when written down, had nothing of that kind, graphicalsigns were not even needed. The old Hebrew texts were organized to a levelcomparable to a modern printed novel, only with other means, with road signsand traffic lights that guided the listener from storyline and prophetic main lineto attendant circumstances, through relative clauses and final, temporal, conse-cutive, comparative and causal qualifying clauses. This hierarchy is most oftencoded without specific subordinating conjunctions. It is an oral economy of thetext where clauses are hypotactically or paratactically ordered with textual sig-nals that were immediately perceivable to the attentive contemporary receivers(ISAKSSON, Circumstantial qualifiers, 36).

Bo IsakssonDept. of Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala University

50 Anterior aspect means that something has happened in the past the results of which arevalid in the relative present reference point. This would fit the context well. However, since theservant is already dead, perfective aspect perhaps better fits the pragmatic situation.

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