Special Issue IOSOT 2013 - Books and Journals

D. Pardee / Vetus Testamentum IOSOT (2013) 99-108 101
This collection of texts, including formal contracts and informal economic
jottings, leaves no doubt that ypḥ was the regular Ugaritic word for “witness”
as a socio-economic entity (appearing only in primary economic documents,
and not in literary texts which might deal with the ethical or moral aspects of
witnessing). Moreover, no other word for “witness” occurs in Ugaritic. Though
its relatively infrequent appearance might lead one to see it as a mot recherché
already in Ugaritic, the fact that no other word for “witness” occurs in the
published material should indicate, rather, that the hazards of discovery simply
have not given us more texts wherein a list of witnesses was considered
necessary. Indeed, if tʿdt in CTA 2.1(137).11, 22, 26, 28, 30, 41, and 44 is correctly
interpreted as “messenger” (< *ʿ[w]d “to witness”,8 than one might surmise that
a word *ʿd “witness” did exist in Ugaritic—and it would be the literary term
for “witness”.
The Texts from the Hebrew Bible
The most frequently consulted dictionaries of Biblical Hebrew9 recognize a
verbal adjective yāpēaḥ in Ps. xxvii 12 (Zorell adds Hab. ii 3), but all analyze
yāpîaḥ/yāpīaḥ in its six occurrences in Proverbs as a finite verb. Commentators
over the centuries have struggled with the form of yāpīaḥ and the syntax of
the phrases in which it is found. Typical is the commentary of F. Delitzsch. He
begins his argument by saying with regard to yāpîaḥ in Prov. xiv 5: “Dort unterliegt
es keinem Zweifel, daß der Satz ein Verbalsatz und yāpîaḥ Finitum ist,
näml. Hi. v. pûaḥ”.10 Then follows a discussion of yāpīaḥ in xiv 25, xix 5, 9 where
the word clearly functions as subject rather than predicate. He concludes: “Es
bleibt nichts übrig als yāpîaḥ für einen in die Stelle eines Nomens eingesetzten
Attributivsatz zu halten: einer der aushaucht . . .”11 This conclusion is based
largely on the fact that the /ā/ of yāpîaḥ does not reduce as it should if the
word were a substantive in the construct state. As mentioned above, Lambert
was much more decisive, holding that the syntax of all the verses in question
requires that yāpîaḥ be analyzed as a substantive (from the root ypḥ). B. Gemser
stated that “Wahrscheinlich ist ypyḥ ein Substantiv, synonym mit ʿd ”12 but in
8) Cf. C. H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook (Rome, 1965), § 19.1832.
9) B. D. B., Gesenius-Buhl, Koehler-Baumgartner (2nd and 3rd editions), Zorell.
10) Das Salomonische Spruchbuch (Leipzig, 1873), p. 114.
11) Compare C. H. Toy, The Book of Proverbs (Edinburgh, 1899), pp. 132, 256; R. B. Y. Scott, Proverbs
(Garden City, 1965), pp. 57, 90, 91, 96, 97, 115.
12) Sprüche Salomos (2nd edn, Tübingen, 1963), p. 38.