[B-Greek] WSANNA getting data right
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Sun Feb 19 15:58:56 EST 2006
Somewhat belatedly I see a long discussion on WSANNA and its pedigree.
Several items could use some correction and the overall situation is
more complex than is reflected in the posts.
hosha`-na is colloquial Hebrew "please save", not Aramaic, not
attested Biblical Hebrew.
It also acquired a liturgical usage beyond its semantic origin. That
liturgical usage may be reflected in the gospel stories, and shows up
in later Hebrew, English, and European music.
The data follows.
First of all, the normal, plain-vanilla, Hebrew imperative of this verb is
hosha`.
[hosha` is not an anomolous form. That is the verb and how any kid
would've said it when attacked by bullies, if he didn't use the plural
hoshi`u or another verb like hatsel or Hallets. Phonetically, hosha`
is just like hatslaH 'do valiantly, be successful'. The 'a' vowel in
the last syllable is normal with any pharyngeal fricative (`ayin/Het)
ending an imperative.]
The [na] particle 'please' has nothing to do with lengthening the
vowel of the final syllable of the single occurrence in the Hebrew
Bible of hoshi`ah+na Ps 118:25. (It is the volitional "-ah" suffix,
which is an extra, optional addition, that causes the form hoshi`ah.)
Note the following occurrences of a common verb
le-haggid "to tell, give a report". These show how "na" on its own
actually preserves the short vowel:
hagged--na 'please tell' occurs 6 times. (Jos 7:19, 1Sm23:11,
2Sm1:4, 2Ki9:12, Jer36:17, 42:20) NOTE THE SHORT VOWEL "e". hosha` has
'a' as its SHORT vowel because of ` ayin.
haggidah--na 'please tell, would you' occurs 8 times. (Gn 32:29,
37:16, Ju16:6,10, 1S9:18, 10:15, Jer 38:25, Jon1:8.)
[[please note: both short-vowel-form hagged 'tell' and long-vowel-form
haggidah '[would you] tell' may occur without the particle 'na'.]]
Note that with the particle "na" attached directly to the imperative,
the SHORT-vowel is preserved [i.e., hagged--na].
This happens regularly with the particle "na". If the verb is
multi-syllable, then a short vowel and the "short form" of the verb
are preserved. This happens tens of times in the Hebrew Bible and
occurs with 2nd person imperatives with 'na' as well as with 3rd
person volitionals [so-called jussives] For those interested, among
those 30-60(?) examples, there are no examples in the Bible of a
Hif`il imperative with a pharyngeal final consonant + na. Just good
short forms like hakker-na, ha`ver-na.
The bottom line of this "short vowel" discussion is that the Hebrew
imperative hosha` + "na" would have produced the form hosha`-na. NB:
the form does not occur in the Hebrew Bible, but it is perfectly good
Hebrew nonetheless. (If this isn't clear, please come to our summer
Biblical Hebrew ulpan.)
hosha`-na could produce WSANNA in Greek since the `ayin cannot be
represented in Greek but it could be compensated with a doubled NN.
Another datum:
*osha` is not an Aramaic verb. I'll repeat that so it sinks in. *osha`
is not attested as in use as an Aramaic verb. This is really pretty
strong contradictory evidence against anyone who would argue that
*osha` became so popular a word in Aramaic that it "froze" and was
carried over into Greek, etc.
E.g., you will not find *osha` in the targumim where, e.g., Hebrew
hoshia` is translated in Onkelos [praq] "he saved". You won't find the
verb in Sokoloff JPA and JA, nor PayneSmith, interesting, no? I do
remember reading an article once where the root y-sh-` (not the verb
osha`, as I remember) was maybe found in some Aramaic text somewhere,
MAYBE one partially-related example. That person then claimed that
that showed that hosha` in the gospels was Aramaic. Shtuyot. It so
clearly directs someone in the opposite direction to Hebrew that one
can only shake their head and wonder what gets called scholarship.
Another datum:
Aramaic does not like to use "na". The targum translates this into
anything but "na" [e.g., beva`u "with a request", k`an]. When this is
coupled with the lack of Aramaic having a verb *osha`, one wonders why
people would consider credible the attribution of WSANNA to Aramaic?
So what is WSANNA in the Gospels? "Greek", of course. While
tongue-in-cheek, there is something remarkably true about this
statement.
Hosha`-na is a well-formed, colloquial Hebrew word, a form that could
not be taken directly from the Bible, that has been transferred into a
name in later Hebrew, the "hosha`-na" branch, carried on the seventh
day of Sukkot. There were apparently prayers applied to that day that
started with this word/verb. It became the name of the seventh day of
Sukkot, hosha`na rabba in medieval times). The gospels of Mark and
Matthew might testify to a nominalized usage of "hosha`-na" already in
the first century. "PLease-Save, (to) the son of David." OK, that can
make some sense in an original context with slight adjustment. But
what in the world would "hosanna in the highest places" mean in first
century Hebrew? That strange phrase needs an article and more support
before I commit my current thoughts publically.
yevarexexem ha-shem
"may the Lord bless you (Hebrew)"
yisge shlamxon
"may your peace be multiplied (Aramaic)"
ERRWSQE
"be well (Greek)"
Randall Buth
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
randallbuth at gmail.com
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