[Mesorah] Conditional statements

[Mandel, Seth via Mesorah]

The following will not shed much light, but I did feel it was worthwhile mentioning:

Various languages have different ways of expressing modalities.  For instance in Enlgish, a contrary to fact statement would use the two helping verbs "would have."  An example is "if I would have (or had) brought my book with me, we would have been able to finish the homework."

In Spanish, you would use the imperfect subjunctive.

In Aramaic, normally Onqelos uses the enclitic particle .?????

The Hebrew of the T'NaKh is very interesting.  It appears to usually use the perfect.  For example, in yesterday's parsha, 31:27, Lavan claims that had Yaaqov only told him (King James transaltion):

"Wherefore didst thou flie away secretly, and steale away from me, and didst not tell mee? that I might haue sent thee away with mirth, and with songs, with tabret, and with harpe."

In Modern English we would say "that I would have sent you away with..."

Onqelos translates as expected: "??????????????? ????? ?????????? ??????????????? ?????????? ?????????????

The Hebrew uses the perfect: "?????????????? ??????????? ??????????? ?????? ???????????

(note the qomatz under the vav, showing that it is perfect).
Another example is in Isaiah, 66:9:
? ????????? ??????????? ?????? ???????? ??????? ??? ?????????? ??????????? ????????????? ?????? ?????????
King James has it as "Shall I bring to the birth, & not cause to bring forth, saith the Lord? shall I cause to bring foorth, and shut the wombe, sayth thy God?"
I think that an more exact translation into Modern English would be "if I am the One giving birth, would I shut Myself up?"
Note that the trop shows that the accent ????????????? is penultimate.  If it were ultimate, it would be vav hahippukh, and would convert it to future.  As penultimate, it is the perfect, but not the normal perfect modality.

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
Rabbinic Coordinator
The Orthodox Union

Voice (212) 613-8330     Fax (212) 613-0718     e-mail mandels at ou.org
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