[B-Greek] WSANNA getting data right
Donald Vance
donaldrvance at mac.com
Sun Feb 19 18:58:59 EST 2006
Ah! Randall joins the fray. Always a welcome addition. I will
interspace my comments directly beneath his.
Donald R. Vance, Ph.D.
Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature
Oral Roberts University
dvance at oru.edu
donaldrvance at mac.com
On Feb 19, 2006, at 2:58 PM, Randall Buth wrote:
> 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.
>
A nice summary of your position. I obviously disagree.
> 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.]
You are correct and I misspoke. See GKC sec. 65f.
>
> 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.)
This is what I was trying to say. Typing emails is an entirely ad hoc
enterprise. The addition of a suffix such as the lengthening /a/ or the
plural morpheme preserves the long i vowel by making its syllable open
(the third radical now begins the ultima instead of closing it).
> 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.
Again, because -na begins with a consonant and thus does not require
the third radical to begin a syllable. So, perhaps, you are correct
that a form such as Hosha<-na could occur. But why don't we ever find
such a form? What is interesting is that all of our examples only show
up with the lengthening /a/ before the precative particle. This, by the
way, is true in the MIshnah as well. I could find only one occurrence
of hosha< and that without -na. Further, in a discussions of Psalm
118:25 (Suk. 3:9; 4:5) the Mishnah employs the lengthened form every
single time with -na. I found one other instance of hoshi<a and it was
not followed by -na. So the data are hardly clear that Hosha<-na is
perfectly good and normal colloquial Hebrew. I would expect to find at
least one such example. I wonder if the addition of -na could obscure
the ayin or het and the long form was used to clarify the guttural's
presence and thus avoid misunderstanding which root was intended.
>
> 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.
This statement is somewhat misleading. In 4Q243 16:2 we find the Aphel
of the root y-sh-< (weyosha<) "and he will save them." So, yes, the
form hosha<-na has not been found in Aramaic of this period, but the
root and the stem have and in the sense required. On the other hand,
hosha<-na has not been found in a Hebrew text either.
> 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.
>
The person to whom you are referring is Joseph Fitzmyer, in the article
Oun cited earlier. Besides 4Q243 16:2 cited above, the root shows up in
the Old Aramaic inscription from Tell Fekherye (also written Tell
Fakhariyah). The root and stem do occur in Aramaic--albeit sparsely
attested. The word Hosha<na does occur in the Talmud, granted as the
name of the lulab, but clearly derived from the text in Psa 118:25. On
the other hand, the form Hosa<-na does not show up in a single Hebrew
text that I have been able to find, but I will take your word that it
shows up later. In precisely the place in the Mishnah where one would
expect to find it, one finds the long form hoshi<a-na as found in the
Bible. There are no examples of third guttural hiphil imperatives with
-na without the lengthening /a/ which preserves the long i vowel. The
data are equivocal at best.
> 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?
Valid point. I found only one instance of -na in the Targums.
>
> 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
This has not been demonstrated and is, in fact, not true according to
the data we have so far (see my comments above).
> 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)"
>
If, on the other hand, you are correct that this form is Hebrew, it
would strengthen considerably the notion that Hebrew was being spoken
at the time of Jesus, a position with which I agree. As Fitzmyer
pointed out already, the Gospels did not use a Greek translation but
reproduced a Semitic expression. The people obviously were not speaking
Greek in these situations.
> Randall Buth
>
> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicalulpan.org
> ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
> randallbuth at gmail.com
Always good to learn from you Randall. You are a joy.
> ---
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