Hebrew: Question about definite direct object marker

[Schulschlus]

I stumbled across 1 Sam 24:10/11

לֹא־אֶשְׁלַ֤ח יָדִי֙ בַּֽאדֹנִ֔י כִּי־מְשִׁ֥יחַ יְהוָ֖ה הֽוּא׃

David says he will not stretch out his hand against his lord... Would "my hand" not be a definite direct object, and therefore require ?אֵ֣ת

 

Thanks for the help!

[c. stirling bartholomew]

3 hours ago, Schulschlus said:

I stumbled across 1 Sam 24:11

לֹא־אֶשְׁלַ֤ח יָדִי֙ בַּֽאדֹנִ֔י כִּי־מְשִׁ֥יחַ יְהוָ֖ה הֽוּא׃

David says he will not stretch out his hand against his lord... Would "my hand" not be a definite direct object, and therefore require ?אֵ֣ת

 

Thanks for the help!

Suggest you use Accordance to address your question. Construct a simple search for [SUFFIX] שָׁלַח יָדוֹ and see how often you find it without the particle אֶת. Then run a search for שָׁלַחְתִּי אֶת־יָדִי and see how many you find. Then check אֶת in Waltke-O'Conner  or Cook–Holmstedt. The idea that אֶת is required isn't exactly what the data tells us.

 

Postscript: Was mentored and instructed and not-mentored by people who studied under Waltke. Some of my best professors were Waltke students. I met him once and his son. I climbed Mt St Helens, Mt Rainer, Mt Constance and Little Tahoma with a Waltke student. I borrowed tapes of Waltke lectures on Critical Problems in OT from my hiking friend.  Very impressive set of lectures from 1975. My not-mentor was Ralph H. Alexander, a Waltke student, who was too busy working on Ezekiel for mentoring. I carried a copy of Waltke's Creation and Chaos, 1974 lectureship around with me for thirty years.

Edited July 19, 2022 by c. stirling bartholomew

[Robert Holmstedt]

The best study of this so far is by Pete Bekins (who lurks on this board -- Pete, where are you?). 

 

Bekins, Peter J. 2014. Transitivity and Object Marking in Biblical Hebrew. HSS 64. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.

 

He doesn't solve everything, but almost. (And who solves everything in a corpus of natural language spanning centuries, anyway?)

 

Edited July 21, 2022 by Robert Holmstedt

[Peter Bekins]

As short as I can put it, the use of את is not mandatory with a definite direct object and there are some clear patterns if you know what to look for. Where the object phrase is definite by virtue of a pronominal suffix that refers back to the subject of the verb it is much less likely to be marked, particularly in the case of body parts. This is probably because:

 

a) the phrase has a middle sense and therefore the action is less "transitive"; he stretched his own hand rather than acting on some separate entity

b) it is an idiomatic phrase where the hand is relatively unimportant to the story and therefore less "referential"; the reader doesn't need to store the hand in memory in case something else is said about it later

 

Don't check Waltke, it is hopelessly confused. 

 

Pete

[Schulschlus]

Thank you all so much! This helps clarify, as I try to understand Hebrew grammar!