Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Different ways to wake up?

This past שבת, for the following פסוק:
ט:כ"ד וַיִּיקֶץ נֹחַ מִיֵּינוֹ
the בעל קריאה mistakenly said וַיִּיקַץ as it is in the beginning of ויצא and מקץ.
I corrected him out of reflex but later wondered what exactly is the difference between the two. As I always ask: If there's a difference, what is the difference. If there is no difference, why are they different?

Once again, Dikdukian is saved by its knowledgeable readers. Yaakov Gross explains:
The later examples (accent on ultimate syllable, with פתח) are the normal form. The first example (accent on penult, final vowel סגול) is נסוג אחור, because it leads into נח whose first syllable is accented; that shift of accent causes a change in the final syllable’s vowel. (The shift in accent is very common with וי"ו ההיפוך, and that often leads to a change of vowels as well. A very familiar example is ויברך (in ויכולו): accent move to ב, and vowel of ר changed from צירי to סגול.

Another reader, however, pointed me to a רשב"ם at the very last פסוק of בראשית which indicates that וַיִּיקֶץ (here) is the passive form. Based on that, he (the reader) suggests the following:
Rasbam explains that with a segol it means a passive form, similarly to vayussam (and he was put), and he compares it to vayiketz (which in this case means he got woken up, while vayikatz means "he woke up". Look into targum yonasan and you'll see that he is wondering who told Noiach what his younger son did to him. And he says that he was informed about it by a dream. But following Rashbam's pshat there is no kushiah. According to both opinions about what he did to Noiach, if we translate vayiketz "he got woken up", it was obviously what was done to him that woke him up, so clearly he knew who did it and what he did.

1 comment:

elie said...

אני מסופק אם מדובר כאן בנסוג אחור
השורש הוא יקץ
מעניין שגם הפתח בק"ף נשתנה לסגול
מה שיותר מצוי הוא שצירי משתנה לסגול
ייתכן שב'ויקץ פרעה' למשל
הפתח הוא תמורת צירי
ולכן כן "התקצר" לסגול אע"פ שגם פתח תנועה קטנה