Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/363

 );, where the narrative breaks off in the middle of the sentence; 40:3 (, &c., wanting in the LXX); also in   is altogether redundant; in  read, with Klostermann, the 2nd sing. masc. instead of ; in   is, no doubt, incorrectly repeated from verse 9, where it is an imperative.

Of other questionable instances, (α) the following, at any rate, may also be explained as frequentatives,, , , , , , , (but even so  would be expected); ,  (parallel with an imperfect);  (unless it is rather, yea, ye shall take up; see above, x); ,.

(β) A longer or constant continuance in a past state is perhaps represented by the perfect with (as a variety of the frequentative perfect with ), in, , , , b, ,. But the unusual perfects consec. in –11, 16:2–8 (ultimately parallel with an imperf. as in 17:9, 18:20), 18:12–21, 19:11–14.22.26–29.34, are without doubt rightly explained by Bennett (, Joshua, p. 23) as originally containing the directions either of God to Joshua or of Joshua to the people; cf. the evident trace of this in 15:4b. A redactor transformed the directions into a description but left the perfects consec., which are to be explained as in aa. In the same way  is most simply explained as repeated from 26:25.

(γ) The following are due to errors in the text, or to incorrect modes of expression: f.,, 16:18 (read ), , , ,  f. (read  and ),  (where  is, no doubt intentionally, assimilated to the four other perfects); 13:3, 20:21;  (where, with Stade,  should be read); 14:14, 18:4 (where, at any rate,  might be taken as a frequentative, but not , &c.; evidently the perfects are co-ordinated only in form with ); 18:36, 21:15, 24:14,  (where , but not , might be frequentative);  (omit  with Stade, and read ); 20:22 (  before an imperfect consecutive);  ( after an imperfect consecutive);.

Finally, in, , , , , , ,  is to be read throughout instead of , but in   with the LXX.

Cf. the dissertation of J. Kahan, and, especially, the thorough investigation by E. Sellin, both entitled, Ueber die verbal-nominals Doppelnatur der hebräischen Participien und Infinitive, &c., Lpz. 1889; F. Prätorius, ‘Ueber die sogen. Infin. absol. des Hebr.’ in 1902, pp. 546 ff.

1. The infinitive absolute is employed according to § 45 to emphasize the idea of the verb in the abstract, i.e. it speaks of an action (or state) without any regard to the agent or to the circumstances of time and mood under which it takes place. As the name of an action the infinitive absolute, like other nouns in the stricter sense,