upon the earth; for all that is done follows fixed laws, and the binding together of cause and effect is removed beyond the influence of the will of man, and also in individual cases beyond his knowledge. The interpunction of 3a: אם־ימּלאוּ העבים גּשׁם (not as by v. d. Hooght, Mendelss., and elsewhere העבים, but as the Venet. 1515, 21, Michael. העבים, for immediately before the tone syllable Mahpach is changed into Mercha) appears on the first glance to be erroneous, and much rather it appears that the accentuation ought to be אם־ימלאו העבים גשם על־הארץ יריקו but on closer inspection גשׁם is rightly referred to the conditional antecedent, for “the clouds could be filled also with hail, and thus not pour down rain” (Hitz.). As in Ecc 4:10, the fut. stands in the protasis as well as in the apodosis. If A is done, then as a consequence B will be done; the old language would prefer the words והריקו ... נמלאו (כי) אם, Ewald, §355b: as often as A happens, so always happens B. יריקוּ carries (without needing an external object to be supplied), as internally transitive, its object is itself: if the clouds above fill themselves with rain, they make an emptying, i.e., they empty themselves downwards. Man cannot, if the previous condition is fixed, change the necessary consequences of it.
The second conditioning clause: si ceciderit lignum ad austraum aut ad aquilonem, in quocunque loco cociderit ibi erit. Thus rightly Jerome. It might also be said: ואם־יפול עץ אם בדרום ואם בחפין, and if a tree falls, whether it be in the south or in the north; this sive ... sive would thus be a parenthetic parallel definition. Thus regarded, the protasis as it lies before us consists in itself, as the two veim in Amo 9:3, of two correlated halves: “And if a tree falls on the south side, and (or) if it fall on the north side,” i.e., whether it fall on the one or on the other. The Athnach, which more correctly belongs to יריקי, sets off in an expressive way the protasis over against the apodosis; that a new clause begins with veim yippol is unmistakeable; for the contrary, there was need for a chief disjunctive to בץ. Meqom is accus. loci for bimqom, as at Est 4:3; Est 8:17. Sham is rightly not connected with the relat. clause (cf. Eze 6:13); the relation is the same as at Est 1:7. The fut. יהוּא is formed from הוה, whence Ecc 2:22, as at Neh 6:6, and in the Mishna (Aboth, vi. 1;[1]Aboda zara, iii. 8) the part. הוה. As the jussive form יהי is formed from יהיה, so יהיה (יהוה) passes into יהוּ, which is here written יהוּא. Hitzig supposes that, according to the passage before us and Job 37:6, the word appears to have been written with א,
- ↑ Vid., Baer, Abodath Jisrael, p. 290.
