Publisher's Synopsis
One of the intriguing and insufficiently understood features of Biblical Hebrew is the use of an infinitive form alongside a finite verb of the same root. The function of this construction has generally been understood as serving to provide some kind of emphasis. However, neither translations nor grammars are consistently able to explain what is being emphasized by the use of this construction. This volume, which is a revision of the author's Ph.D. dissertation at the Johns Hopkins University (2006), examines the tautological infinitive construction in Classical Biblical Hebrew (that is, the Hebrew written during the First Temple Period, more or less equivalent to the material in Genesis-2 Kings, excluding "P") in order to give a coherent and consistent explanation of its function. In a final chapter, Kim discusses the use of the tautological infinitive in Classical Biblical Hebrew in relation to its use in non-Classical biblical texts and Semitic languages in order to set it in a broader context.
