A Reassessment of the Hebrew Negative

Interrogative Particle hlʾ

Matthew McAffee
Welch College

The trend in recent scholarship on the Hebrew negative interrogative particle

hlʾ has been to suggest two distinct, underlying etymologies. In addition to the
traditional etymology of interrogative {h} + negative particle lōʾ, some scholars
propose an asseverative particle *hallū, now lost in the Masoretic leveling of all
forms to halōʾ. The following study reassesses this proposal, suggesting that the
evidence for the new etymology is untenable.

introduction
The Hebrew language employs the combination of two separate particles in order to express
a negative rhetorical question (cf. Latin nonne?). 1 According to the vowel pointing of the
MT, the negative rhetorical particle consists of the interrogative {h} + the negative particle
lōʾ > halōʾ. 2 Scholars have long observed that in certain contexts, the Hebrew negative inter-
rogative seems to warrant an asseverative meaning. 3 For example, in H. A. Brongers’ study
of this particle, he provides the following assessment of its meaning in light of an ancient
Near Eastern cultural context:

I would like to thank Dennis Pardee and Rebecca Hasselbach of the University of Chicago and Aaron Butts of
Catholic University of America for insightful critiques of earlier versions of this essay. This study has benefited
greatly from their interaction. Any persistent deficiencies, however, are my own.
1.  Cf. also the alternative negated rhetorical question construction, as in the following example: ‫הצרי אין בגלעד‬
‫“ אם רפא אין ׁשם‬Is there no balm in Gilead, nor physician there?” (Jer. 8:22). On the rhetorical question in both
Hebrew and Ugaritic, see Moshe Held, “Rhetorical Questions in Ugaritic and Biblical Hebrew,” ErIsr 9 (1969):
71–79.
2.  Written defectively halōʾ (120x): Gen. 13:9; 19:20; 20:5; 27:36; 29:25; Exod. 4:11; 4:14; 14:12; Num. 12:2;
12:14; 22:37; 23:12; 23:26; 24:12; Deut. 11:30; 31:17; 32:34; Josh. 10:13; Judg. 4:6; 4:14; 5:30; 6:13; 6:14; 9:28;
9:38; 10:11; 11:7; 11:24; 14:15; 15:2; 15:11; Ruth 3:1; 3:2; 1 Kings 1:13; 14:29; 15:23; 15:31; 16:5; 16:20; 16:27;
18:13; 22:46; 2 Kings 4:28; 5:12; 14:15; 14:18; 14:28; 15:6; 15:36; 16:19; 18:27; 19:25; 20:20; 21:17; 21:25; 23:28;
24:5; 1 Chr. 19:3; 21:3; 21:17; 22:18; 2 Chr. 9:29; 12:15; 13:5; 13:9; 16:8; 18:17; 20:6; 20:7; 20:12; 25:26; 28:10;
32:11; 32:12; 32;13; Job 1:10; 4:6; 4:21; 7:1; 8:10; 10:10; 10:20; 12:11; 13:11; 21:29; 22:5; 31:3; 32:4; Ps. 14:4;
44:22; 53:5; 54:2; 56:9; 56:9; 56:14; 60:12; 85:7; 94:9; 94:10; 108:12; Prov. 8:1; 22:20; Eccles. 6:6; Isa. 10:8;
10:9; 10:11; 36:12; 44:8; 57:11; Jer. 26:19; Ezek. 12:9; 17:12; 18:25; 18:29; 21:5; 24:19; 26:15; Amos 5:20; or
plene halōwʾ (294x): Gen. 4:7; 31:15; 34:23; 37:13; 40:8; 42:22; 44:5; 44:15; Exod. 33:16; Num. 14:3; 22:30; Deut.
32:6; Josh. 1:9; 22:20; Judg. 8:2; Ruth 2:8; 2:9; 1 Sam. 1:8; 6:6; 9:20; 9:21; 10:1; 12:17; 15:17; 17:8; 17:29; 20:30;
20:37; 21:12; 23:19; 26:1; 26:14; 26:15; 29:3; 29:4; 29:5; 2 Sam. 2:26; 3:38; 4:11; 10:3; 11:3; 11:10; 11:20; 11:21;
13:4; 13:28; 16:19; 19:14; 19:23; 1 Kings 1:11; 2:42; 11:41; 15:7; 16:14; 22:18; 22:39; 2 Kings 1:18; 2:18; 5:13;
6:11; 6:32; 8:23; 10:34; 12:20; 13:8; 13:12; 15:21; 18:22; 20:19; Ezra 9:14; Neh. 5:9; 13:18; 13:26; Esther 10:2; Ps.
139:2; Prov. 14:22; Isa 8:19; 28:25; 29:17; 36:7; 37:26; 40:21; 40:28; 42:24; 43:19; 44:20; 45:21; 48:6; 51:9; 51:10;
57:4; 58:6; 58:7; Jer. 2:17; 3:1; 3:4; 5:3; 7:19; 13:21; 22:15; 22:16; 23:24; 23:29; 33:24; 35:13; 38:15; 44:21; Ezek.
13:7; 13:12; 17:9; 17:10; 18:23; 24:25; 34:2; 37:18; 38:14; Joel 1:16; Amos 6:13; 9:7; Obad. 5, 8; Jonah 4:2; Mic.
1:5; 2:7; 3:1; 3:11; Hab. 1:12; 2:6; 2:7; 2:13; Hag. 2:3; Zech. 1:6; 3:2; 4:5; 4:13; 7:6; 7:7; Mal. 1:2; 2:10.
3.  E.g., Ezekiel 38:14: ‫“ הלוא ביום ההוא בׁשבת עמי יׂשראל לבטח תדע‬Surely on that day, when my people Israel
dwell securely, you will know.”

Journal of the American Oriental Society 135.1 (2015) 115

116 Journal of the American Oriental Society 135.1 (2015)

In the oriental way of thinking in colloquial speech one must avoid any statement that may pos-
sibly offend the partner. Hence the remarkable phenomenon that in cases where the partner is
supposed to be fully aware of the positive content of the statement this is nevertheless preceded
by the interrogative particle. This is nothing but courteousness, comparable with our introducing
of a statement by the friendly “As everyone knows” or “As generally acknowledged.” 4

Essentially, Brongers operates under the assumption that the asseverative meaning stems
from the nature of the negative interrogative rhetorical question, which usually expects a pos-
itive response. 5 For the most part, Bronger’s analysis falls in line with the traditional view,
exemplified in GKC’s remark on the positive force of the negative interrogative particle: “It
serves merely to express the conviction that the contents of the statement are well known to
the hearer, and are unconditionally admitted by him.” 6
Another approach has been offered by some Northwest Semitic grammarians, namely one
which posits a new etymology for the asseverative meaning, separate and therefore distinct
from the negative interrogative particle. 7 One of the more prominent studies on this topic
is that of Michael L. Brown, who promotes the new asseverative etymology on the follow-
ing grounds: 1) many examples throughout the Hebrew Bible are better suited to a meaning
roughly equivalent to hinnēh ‘Look!, Behold!’ and 2) comparative evidence attests the exis-
tence of an affirmative particle hlw ‘Look!, Behold!’ 8
Much of the discussion has focused on the existence of presentative/asseverative particles
in other Northwest Semitic languages as proof that a similar particle must have existed in
Classical Hebrew as well. Perhaps Ugaritic has provided the most fodder for the debate with
its presentative particle hl ‘Look!, Behold!’ allegedly providing the comparitive evidence
for a counterpart in Hebrew, though now lost as a result of the MT’s conflating it with halōʾ.
The El Amarna (EA) particle allû has had a similar effect, leading some scholars to posit yet
another etymological relative of the newly proposed Hebrew asseverative. 9 Finally, Aramaic
has made its own contribution to this newly proposed etymology, offering the particles hlw
(Imperial Aramaic) and ʾalūw (Biblical Aramaic) for consideration in the conversation about
Hebrew hlʾ. 10

4.  H. A. Brongers, “Some Remarks on the Biblical Particle halōʾ,” OtSt 21 (1981): 178.
5.  Ibid., further states: “Actually, ‘questions’ of this kind are best translated in an affirmative way by inferring
‘as you know’ or ‘as everyone knows.’”
6.  GKC, §150e.
7.  Perhaps alluded to in Joüon, §161c.
8.  Michael L. Brown, “ ‘Is it not?’ or ‘Indeed’: HL in Northwest Semitic,” Maarav 4/2 (1987): 201–19.
Consequently, Brown argues that Hebrew halōʾ needs to be re-analyzed as the conflation of two distinct Semitic
particles: the affirmative *halūwʾ and the negative interrogative halōʾ, outlining the following conclusions as a result
of his study: 1) improvements in translation, especially where verses were forced to accommodate a presupposed
interrogative negative sense; 2) changes in lexical organization, now listing hlʾ under *halūwʾ, and not under lōwʾ,
subdivision ha + lōwʾ; 3) clarification of etymology: BH *halūwʾ = Ugar. hl, EA/Akk. allû, Aram. hlw, ʾrh, ʾalūw,
ʾarūw (which he equates with ʾarūwm and ʾarēy), MH harēy, whereas BH ha + lōʾ = Arab. ʾalā, Tg. Aram. halāhʾ, both
in form and function; and 4) probable revocalization of *halūwʾ or hallūwʾ. In a similar fashion, though slightly
nuanced from the presentation of Brown, Daniel Sivan and William Schniedewind (“Letting Your ‘Yes’ Be ‘No’
in Ancient Israel: A Study of Asseverative ‫ לֹא‬and ‫הֲלֹא‬,” JSS 38 [1993]: 226) argue for a bipartite etymology, stat-
ing that “[a]longside asseverative lû there existed another etymologically unrelated form, namely *halū (II ‫)הלא‬.”
9.  E.g., Brown, “HL in Northwest Semitic,” 207–11, contra Sivan and Schniedewind, “Letting Your ‘Yes’ Be
‘No’,” 211, who wisely question the validity of this connection due to the phonological matters discussed below.
10.  It should be noted here that little attention has been devoted to the evidence from Targumic Aramaic, where
both asseverative and negative interrogative particles co-exist. See the discussion of the evidence from Aramaic
below.
 McAffee: A Reassessment of the Hebrew Negative Interrogative Particle hlʾ 117

The following essay, then, will attempt to evaluate the legitimacy of this alternative ety-
mological proposal for Hebrew halōʾ. Does the comparative evidence indeed make it nec-
essary to reconstruct a now lost asseverative particle for Classical Hebrew? Furthermore,
does the earlier approach, which makes an allowance for the gradual development of the
original rhetorical negative question to a positive assertion in function, fail to account for
those instances in the Hebrew Bible where the negative interrogative seems forced? Toward
the end of this discussion, the syntax of Hebrew halōʾ will be considered briefly as another
source of evidence in evaluating this new hypothesis, asking the question: does this particle
correspond syntactically to other Hebrew particles? These questions will be entertained in
what follows in an attempt to assess the available evidence for or against the newly recon-
structed Hebrew asseverative.

ugaritic presentative particles

The natural place to begin in dealing with the evidence from Ugaritic would be the particle
hl/hln/hlny. However, due to the importance of its relationship with hn (and more specifi-
cally hnn and hnny) in Ugaritic epistolography, the following discussion will start off with a
brief etymological overview of hn/hnn/hnny before treating hl/hln/hlny. Furthermore, their
overlap in usage throughout the epistolary materials makes Ugaritic hl an unlikely parallel
for the so-called Hebrew asseverative *hallūw.

Ugaritic hn
Morphologically, the Ugaritic particle hnny amounts to an expansion of the presentative
particle hn: hn + -n + -y. Scholars have noted this capacity of the particle, as for example
C. H. Gordon, who interprets hn- as the equivalent of the Hebrew particle hinnēh, ‘behold’,
but does not comment specifically on the expanded form hnny. 11 Similarly, Stanislav Segert
translates hn as ‘behold, lo’, but also notes that hn “and its derivatives hnn, hnny, and hl (and
perhaps hlm) usually occur at the beginning of a clause,” categorizing hn- and hl- together at
least on the syntactical level. 12 Daniel Sivan also glosses hn (hinnī?) as ‘behold’ on analogy
to Hebrew hinnēh, 13 but elsewhere categorizes hnny and hlny as locative adverbs meaning
‘here, hither’. 14 Joseph Tropper identifies hn as both a “Lokaladverb” meaning ‘hier’, citing
Hebrew hennāh, Arabic hunā, ha/innā, and Akkadian anna/i- for his categorization, 15 as
well as the demonstrative pronoun hnd (hanna + dī/ā) ‘dieser’ and adverb hn (ha/innV)
‘siehe!’ 16 In an extensive review of Tropper’s landmark grammar, Dennis Pardee suggests
that the entire category for his locative hn depends upon a single example (RS 16.402:31),
and that in this case it should be etymologically related to Arabic hunā rather than Hebrew
hinnēh. 17 Bordreuil and Pardee define hn as a deictic particle (related to the Hebrew definite

11.  C. H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1965), 109.
12.  S. Segert, A Basic Grammar of the Ugaritic Language: With Selected Texts and Glossary (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1984), 81.
13.  Daniel Sivan, A Grammar of the Ugaritic Language (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 2001), 185.
14.  Ibid., 180.
15.  Joseph Tropper, Ugaritische Grammatik (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2000), 737.
16.  Ibid., 229, 794–850.
17.  Dennis Pardee, Review of J. Tropper, Ugaritische Grammatik, AfO 50 (online version only, 2004): 116,
197, 365; <http://www.univie.ac.at/orientalistik/?page=Archiv%20f.%20Orientforschung&m=7&PHPSESSID=66
234a3eb0dd4908605f4b5a5a98ec18#pardee>. Concerning the Hebrew particles h + n, he argues from comparative
evidence for three historical forms: deictic particle /han-/, local particle /hun-/, and conditional particle /hin-/.
118 Journal of the American Oriental Society 135.1 (2015)

article /han-/ and the presentative particle hēn/hinnēh) which can be expanded with suffixed
elements (in this case -n + -y). 18

Ugaritic hl
The particle hl has garnered a number of interpretations, but it appears as though most
scholars have viewed it primarily as a deictic particle. Gordon explains that functionally,
hl may “emphasize the sentence it introduces” and simply translates ‘lo’. 19 The deictic
nature of hl is without dispute, 20 but the expanded forms (i.e., hln, hlny) also demonstrate
an additional locative sense in Ugaritic letters. For Tropper, hl serves primarily as a deictic
particle in both its initial and expanded forms: hl, hln, hlny = ‘siehe!’, 21 though he briefly
notes a possible connection with Hebrew halōʾ ‘nicht?’, implying that the Ugaritic hl and
the Hebrew form traditionally understood as the negative interrogative (interrogative ha +
negative lōʾ = negative rhetorical question expecting affirmative answer) are etymologically
related. 22 Brown has attempted to make the same etymological connection, suggesting that
the “emphatic” force of the Ugaritic form compels a reanalysis of Hebrew halōʾ in certain
cases, which would reduce it to the status of being a synonym of hinnēh. 23 For Brown at
least, this etymological connection is primarily grounded on those usages of hnny and hlny in
the formulaic greeting under the assumption that in those cases they simply mean ‘behold’, 24
without any consideration of the independent examples of hlny at the beginning of letters. If
one can demonstrate that hlny functions as a locative in those settings, this connection would
be weakened, since the contexts of Hebrew halōʾ would not readily lend themselves to a
locative interpretation. It seems that Pardee is right in suggesting that hlny is the particle that
takes on “locative nuance”; 25 though hl can function deictically, the locative sense is well
attested in Ugaritic letters. 26

Epistolary Usage of hnny/hlny

The expanded particles hnny/hlny occur almost exclusively in the greeting formula of
Ugaritic letters. 27 This greeting formula consists of a general statement of well-being, in
which the writer acknowledges his own state of affairs, which may be followed by a request

According to this proposal, /han-/ and /hun-/ collapsed to the form /hinn-/, save the definite article realized as
/han-/ (n. 1294).
18.  Pierre Bordreuil and Dennis Pardee, Manuel d’ougaritique (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 2004), 55–56, 77.
19.  Gordon, 109. He also discusses the ability of hl to take suffixes, most notably -n (110).
20. See DUL, 336–37.
21. Tropper, Ugaritische Grammatik, 750–51.
22.  Ibid., 750. See also John Huehnergard, “Asseverative *la and Hypothetical *lu/law in Semitic,” JAOS 103
(1983): 571 n. 23, where he posits “[Aramaic] hlw is to be compared with Ugaritic hl, Arabic halā/ʾalā, and possibly
Hebrew halōʾ or hāləʾāh.”
23.  Brown, “HL in Northwest Semitic,” 202–7. Brown suggests that “hlny is an exact parallel to hnny in the let-
ters” (p. 204), but as will be set out below, this is an oversimplification of the data. On Hebrew halōʾ, see also Sivan
and Schneidewind, “Letting Your ‘Yes’ Be ‘No’,” 209–26; Brongers, “Some Remarks,” 177–89.
24. E.g., hlny/hnny ʿmn s̆lm . . . ṯmny ʿmk mnm šlm rgm ṯṯb ly “Here with me all is well . . . there with you,
whatever is well return word to me.”
25.  Pardee, review of J. Tropper, Ugaritische Grammatik, 365.
26.  E.g., note the expanded form of hl-: hlny ʿmny kll šlm “Here with me all is well” (RS 11.872:9–10). Note
that all occurrences of hlny cited in this study occur within epistolary contexts. Perhaps the nature of direct speech
makes this nuance more feasible, especially in letter writing, where the need for correspondence arises from the fact
that two parties are separated geographically.
27. Cf. hnny: RS 8.315/KTU 2.11:10; RS 18.031/KTU 2.38:6; RS 18.147/KTU 2.46:6; RS 29.095/KTU 2.71:5;
RS 34.124/KTU 2.72:7; and hlny: RS 3.427/KTU 2.1:3; RS 11.872/KTU 2.13:9; RS 15.174/KTU 2.21:7; RS
 McAffee: A Reassessment of the Hebrew Negative Interrogative Particle hlʾ 119

for the addressee to return word to him concerning his own state of well-being. A typical
formula might look something like the following: hlny/hnny ʿmn s̆lm . . . . ṯmny ʿmk mnm
šlm rgm ṯṯb ly “Here with me all is well . . . there with you, whatever is well return word
to me.” 28 As to the initial elements of the formula in question, it has often been noted that
both hlny and hnny are utilized in the “here-there” formulation. However, some scholars
move one step further in arguing that this interchange may indicate that the particles hlny
and hnny were synonymous in their meaning and function. 29 One cannot deny that these two
particles are interchangeable in this type of formula, 30 but as Pardee has already noted, their
distribution does not warrant their being interpreted as complete synonyms, at least without
qualification. He observes that in spite of the fact that hlny and hnny both occur in what he
calls the “double well-being formula,” hlny often occurs at the beginning of the main body
of the letter, whereas hnny does not:
Certains textes permettent d’établir une distinction sémantique entre hn- et hl-: il s’agit de
l’usage du seul hl- pour introduire le corps de la lettre lorsqu’il ne s’agit pas de la formule
de bien-être, toujours en rapport avec la situation de l’expéditeur. En plus du sens présentatif,
“voici,” ce mot comporte donc la nuance locale d’“ici.” 31

This observation in essence attempts to show that outside of the formulaic expression of
well-being, hlny is the particle of choice to denote the writer’s distance from the respective
addressee. This situation contrasts with that of hnn(y) in its restriction to the formulaic well-
being address, casting doubt on the innate ability of this particle to denote a locative nuance. 32
By way of example, RS 94.2479 exhibits such a distinction between the two: (5) hlny . hnn .
b . (6) bt . mlk . kll (7) šlm . ṯmny (8) ʿm . ʾadty . mnm < šlm > (9) w . rgm tṯṯb (10) ʿm . ʿbdh
“Here, behold, in the house of the king, all is well; there with my lady, whatever < is well >
may she return word to her servant.” 33

Morphology of hlny
The vocalization of the expanded form hlny is all but certain thanks to its appearance
in a polyglot vocabulary with the syllabic spelling al-li-ni-ya, 34 presumably representing
a normalized form halliniya. Earlier treatments of this expanded particle proposed that
the final -ny must represent the 1 c. pl. pronominal suffix, i.e., utilizing a matres lectionis

16.379/KTU 2.30:8, 12; RS 29.093/KTU 2.70:11; RS 17.434/KTU 2.73:8; RS 94.2406:3; RIH 77/01/KTU 2.77:8;
RIH 77/21A/KTU 2.78:4; RIH 77/21A/KTU 2.78; RIH 77/25/KTU 2.79:2.
28.  For an analysis of this formula, see Pardee, “Une formule épistolaire en ougaritique et accadien,” in Semitic
and Assyriological Studies Presented to Pelio Fronzaroli by Pupils and Colleagues (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
2003), 446–75.
29.  Daniel Sivan, A Grammar of the Ugaritic Language, 180, glosses hlny ‘here, hither’ and hnny ‘here’. More
emphatically, Brown, “HL in Northwest Semitic,” 204.
30. On hlny and hnny, see Tropper, Ugaritische Grammatik: hnny ‘hier’ §81.11c; hlny ‘siehe’ §81.4e.
31.  Pardee, “Une formule épistolaire,” 451 n. 13. See also the comments in his review of J. Tropper, Ugaritische
Grammatik, 116, 197, 365–66.
32.  RS 8.315:10 (KTU 2.11:10); RS 18.031:6 (KTU 2.38:6); RS 18.147:6 (KTU 2.46:6); RS 29.095:5 (KTU
2.71:5); RS 34.124:7 (KTU 2.72:7).
33.  Bordreuil and Pardee, Manuel d’ougaritique, 94–95.
34.  J. Nougayrol, Ugaritica 5: Nouveaux textes accadiens, hourrites et ugaritiques des archives et bibliothèques
privées d’Ugarit (Mission de Ras Shamra 16; Paris: Geuthner, 1968), 138; see also J. Huehnergard, Ugaritic Vocab-
ulary in Syllabic Transcription (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2008), 121, though Huehnergard normalizes the form
as hallinīya.
120 Journal of the American Oriental Society 135.1 (2015)

“Behold, we . . .” 35 From a strictly syntactical point of view, this analysis would not work
in the ­well-being formula where the pronominal element is already attached to the follow-
ing preposition ʿm- (e.g., hlny ʿmny šlm “Here, with me it is well”). In terms of morphology,
it is difficult to maintain that the Ugaritic language possessed matres lectionis at all, 36 and
so it is no doubt better to interpret the -n and -y of hlny as expansion particles, or enclitics:
demonstrative particle ha(n) + enclitic li + enclitic -ni + enclitic -ya. 37 Taking the two enclit-
ics together, Kjell Aartun identifies the final -ny of both hlny and hnny as “die Derivations­
endung -ny” functioning adverbially. 38 In short, the demonstrative han- provides the base
form, to which these various enclitic elements are added: han + ni + ya > hannaniya; han +
li + ni + ya > halliniya. 39
The morphosyntax of Ugaritic hl/hln/hlny poses serious problems for the attempted ety-
mological connection with Hebrew halōʾ. From a strictly morphological viewpoint, if one
takes the only vocalized attestation of this particle seriously, the doubled l is not reflected
in the Masoretic pointing halōʾ. 40 Nowhere in the Hebrew Bible can one find evidence of a
doubled lamed; so it must be acknowledged from the start that any etymological connection
resorts to emending the Hebrew text, as Brown suggests. 41 The difficulty of this connection,
however, does not end here, since it is assumed that the underlying proto-Semitic particle
of the various reflexes evident in the Semitic languages is the asseverative lū. For example,
Brown sets out to argue in his discussion that along with Biblical Hebrew ha + lōʾ, there
also existed an interjection *halūʾ, which he declares “is an exact cognate of Ugaritic hl, Old
Aramaic hlw (= Biblical Aramaic ʾalūw. . .), and EA allū.” 42 Setting aside for the moment the
latter two proposed etymologies, the syllabic rendering of Ugaritic hlny attests an /i/ vowel
following the l, and not the asseverative /u/ vowel. 43 As argued above, the etymology of hlny

35.  See Ch. Virolleaud, “Fragments alphabétiques divers de Ras Shamra,” Syria 19 (1938): 343, noted by H. L.
Ginsberg, “Baal’s Two Messengers,” BASOR 95 (1944): 29.
36.  See Bordreuil and Pardee, Manuel d’ougaritique, 74, where they highlight the typical features of languages
that employ matres, features that are noticeably lacking for Ugaritic.
37. Huehnergard, Ugaritic Vocabulary in Syllabic Transcription, 121, believes the final -y is not a mater lec-
tionis, followed by R. Hawley, “Studies in Ugaritic Epistolography” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2003), 712
n. 89. See also Pardee, review of J. Tropper, Ugaritische Grammatik, 369, where he proposes the etymology /han-/
+ /l/ > /hall-/ as more likely than Tropper’s reconstruction of a distinct locative particle /hal-/ + /l/ (Ugaritische
Grammatik, 750). It should be noted here that the precise function of the enclitics -n and -y is not entirely certain. I
have adopted the terminology of Pardee in simply calling those particles with enclitic(s) expansion forms (see his
remarks on hlny and hnny in his review of J. Tropper, Ugaritische Grammatik, 116, 197, 365–66).
38.  Kjell Aartun, Die Partikeln des Ugaritischen (Kevelaer: Butzon & Berker, 1978), 57 n. 550. In this note,
Aartun also references the ability of these particles to function as “Lokaladverbs,” though not mentioned by Brown,
“HL in Northwest Semitic,” 203 n. 4.
39.  See also Rebecca Hasselbach, “Demonstratives in Semitic,” JAOS 127 (2007): 21–22, where she notes that
in Semitic the element -n is often associated with near deixis while the element -l most likely indicated far deixis.
As it relates to Ugaritic hnny and hlny, it is difficult to identify real world, areal distinction in their usage in the
letters, i.e., hlny = far versus hnny = near. (The problem for the Ugaritic situation is that the opposite appears to be
the case, since hlny expresses the writer’s situation, as opposed to the addressee’s.) On the other hand, one can read-
ily acknowledge that the demonstrative element *han of both hlny and hnny distinguishes these particles from the
Semitic far demonstrative Hasselbach reconstructs as *ʾVl. For Ugaritic, hnny and hlny denote the close proximity
of the speaker in contradistinction to the distance of the addressee, demarcated with ṯmny.
40.  Also noted by Sivan and Schniedewind, “Letting Your ‘Yes’ Be ‘No’ in Ancient Israel,” 211.
41.  At no point in Brown’s discussion of Ugaritic hl does he cite the attested vocalized form al-li-ni-ya first pub-
lished by Nougayrol in 1968 (see Brown, “HL in Northwest Semitic,” 202–7); nor does he account for the evidence
of a doubled l in the El Amarna asseverative al-lu, which would also create problems for a connection with Hebrew
halōʾ (ibid., 207–11; see also the discussion on EA allû below).
42.  Brown, “HL in Northwest Semitic,” 202.
43.  On the asseverative, see Huehnergard, “Asseverative *la,” 570–76.
 McAffee: A Reassessment of the Hebrew Negative Interrogative Particle hlʾ 121

most likely involves an expansion of the demonstrative hn: han + li + ni + ya > halliniya,
and thus would not be related to the Semitic asseverative at all. The presentative nature of
the shortened form hl (< *han + li), as well as hn (< *han), would then arise from its demon-
strative origin instead of from an etymological connection with the asseverative particle.
Furthermore, the specific locative usage of hlny and hnny evident in Ugaritic letters with the
meaning “here” seems more appropriate for a demonstrative etymology than would be the
case for the asseverative connection. Even before one considers an alternative asseverative
etymology for Hebrew halōʾ, it seems likely that the Ugaritic hl may be the wrong particle
for comparison, both on morphological and syntactic grounds. 44

etymology of the west semitic presentative particles allû and ʾal

El Amarna allû
Leaving Ugaritic hl aside, the question remains concerning the etymological connection,
if any, between Hebrew halōʾ and the Canaanite presentative particle attested from EA as
al-lu. 45 Early on, it was believed that EA allû was an earlier equivalent to Hebrew halōʾ,
thus a negative rhetorical particle meaning ‘Is it not?’ 46 For example, the CAD identifies
this particle as an interrogative particle, and glosses accordingly, ‘Is it not?’, ‘Is it not that?’ 47
A. F. Rainey, on the other hand, has rejected any relationship whatsover between the two,
and instead proposes the following two possibilities, apparently favoring the first: 1) EA allû
might be a cognate of the far demonstrative ullû, or 2) EA allû, as a cognate of ullû, the far
demonstrative “that,” is analogical to the near demonstrative annû, “this.” 48 As in the case
of Ugaritic hlny, the doubled l of allû again poses problems for a supposed relationship with
the Hebrew particle halōʾ in its lack of such a feature. 49 Scholars have also noted that the EA
allû variants al-le and al-la pose additional phonological problems for a comparison with
Hebrew halōʾ. It should be reasonable to conclude, then, that the evidence from EA does not
favor any relationship with the Hebrew negative interrogative particle.

Ugaritic ʾal
On the other hand, Ugaritic might possess a more likely relative to the EA presentative
particle allû, though with reference to Ugaritic one must exercise caution in drawing d­ efinite

44.  The argument of Sivan and Schniedewind, “Letting Your ‘Yes’ Be ‘No’,” 210–11, that “it is impossible
to understand II ‫ הלא‬as a rhetorical question with the interrogative ‫ה‬
ֲ since Ugaritic does not possess an interroga-
tive h,” therefore cannot be sustained, since these authors are operating under the assumption that Ugaritic hl and
Hebrew halōwʾ are cognates.
45.  See A. F. Rainey, “Some Presentative Particles in the Amarna Letters,” UF 20 (1988): 214–20; ibid.,
Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets 3 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 159–67; and Daniel Sivan, Grammatical Analysis and
Glossary of Northwest Semitic Vocables in Akkadian Texts of the 15th–13th C.B.C. from Canaan and Syria (Kev-
elaer: Butzon & Bercker, 1984), 129–30. Note also the secondary forms al-le (EA 94:163), al-le-mi (EA 83:53),
al-le-e (EA 122:41), al-la (EA 101:14), and al-la-mi (EA 83:38), which Rainey (“Some Presentation Particles,” 214)
suggests might represent a type of delineation.
46.  See the discussion on the history of the interpretation of allû in Rainey, “Some Presentation Particles,”
214–18.
47.  CAD 1:358. Note also Sivan, Grammatical Analysis and Glossary, 129–30, where he lists this particle under
the heading “Interrogatives.” Sivan and Schniedewind (“Letting Your ‘Yes’ Be ‘No’,” 211), however, appear more
hesitant about this connection.
48.  Rainey, “Some Presentative Particles,” 214. See also Hasselbach, “Demonstratives in Semitic,” 23, where
she reconstructs the plural base for the PWS far demonstrative ʾul(±li).
49. Sivan, Grammatical Analysis and Glossary, 130; Rainey, “Some Presentative Particles,” 214; and Sivan and
Schniedewind, “Letting Your ‘Yes’ Be ‘No’,” 211, all note this problem.
122 Journal of the American Oriental Society 135.1 (2015)

conclusions in light of unvocalized texts. That being said, the particle ʾal (ʾallū) is well
attested in several Ugaritic texts with an assevertive function, 50 e.g., KTU 1.4 VII 45:
dll . ʾal . ʾilʾak . l bn ʾilm . mt
Indeed, I will send a messenger to Môtu, son of ʾIlu. 51

The existence of the Ugaritic asseverative ʾal offers a more appropriate etymological parallel
to EA al-lu, and furthermore, it maintains a functional distinction from the local adverbial
usage of hl (along with its permutations hln, hlny) evident throughout Ugaritic epistlography. 52

etymology of aramaic hlʾ

A number of scholarly voices have also made appeals to the Aramaic asseverative par-
ticles hlw (Old Aramaic, Jewish Aramaic [Tg Neof ]) and ʾalūw (Biblical Aramaic) as further
evidence against the traditional etymology of the Hebrew particle halōʾ. Sivan and Schnie-
dewind observe that the plene spelling hlwʾ, which shares a 71 to 29 ratio of distribution
with the non-plene spelling throughout the Hebrew Bible, may result from a proto-Semitic
*halū, possibly the equivalent to Aramaic hlw. 53 Similarly, Brown cites the existence of the
affirmative particle hlw “Look!” of Imperial Aramaic, and ʾalūw ‘Lo! Look!’ of Biblical Ara-
maic, each of which he identifies as one of a “wide variety of by-forms related to [Ugaritic]
hl.” 54 Though the problems facing a connection between Hebrew halōʾ and Ugaritic hl have
already been noted above, the feasibility of an etymological relationship with Aramaic hlw/
ʾalūw remains on the table for discussion here. If one were to follow the line of thought that
the Hebrew plene spelling evinces just such a connection, the final aleph would require some
sort of reanalysis in Aramaic. Also, it is worth noting at this juncture that in Biblical Aramaic
both halāʾ (< interrogative {h} + negative lāʾ) and ʾalūw are attested in the book of Daniel, the
former functioning as a negative interrogative and the latter as an asseverative. 55
The only form for which a vocalization exists for this asseverative occurs in Biblical
Aramaic as ʾalūw, most likely cognate with the Imperial Aramaic particle hlw. The particle
hlw is well attested throughout Imperial Aramaic as an interjection meaning ‘behold’ with
one of the following narrower usages: 1) introducing a letter, with or without a greeting
formula; 2) introducing a new subject or new aspect of a subject already under discussion. 56
In both of these usages, hlw functions as a presentative particle resembling Hebrew hinnēh.
According to the vocalization of the Biblical Aramaic counterpart ʾalūw, the reduced initial
vowel naturally distinguishes this particle from EA allû, since historical doubling would
have prevented vowel reduction. The association of Aramaic hlw with Ugaritic hl is equally

50. Tropper, Ugaritische Grammatik, 805–6; Bordreuil and Pardee, Manuel d’ougaritique, 74.
51.  For additional references, see Tropper, Ugaritische Grammatik, 805–6; DUL, 47.
52.  Note also that ʾal would then be distinguished from the proclitic asseverative l- in Ugaritic. On this particle,
see Huehnergard, “Asseverative *la,” 583–84.
53.  Sivan and Schniedewind, “Letting Your ‘Yes’ Be ‘No’,” 210, especially n. 3. They also point out that since
the Hebrew negative ‫ לא‬is almost never spelled plene (35x of approximately 5200 occurrences), ‫ הלוא‬must evince
an earlier asseverative particle. For more on the significance of the plene spelling, see discussion below.
54.  Brown, “HL in Northwest Semitic,” 211.
55.  hlʾ: Dan. 3:24; 4:27; 6:13; ʾlw: Dan. 2:31; 4:7; 4:10; 7:8. For a discussion of hlʾ from the perspective of
Aramaic, see B. A. Mastin, “The Meaning of halāʾ at Daniel IV 27,” VT 42 (1992): 234–47. Brown (“HL in North-
west Semitic,” 214 n. 70) does acknowledge that the situation in Aramaic is distinct from that of Biblical Hebrew.
Additionally, both hlʾ and hlw are attested in Targumic Aramaic (see discussion to follow).
56.  E.g., introducing a letter: kʿn hlw ḥlm ḥzyt “Now look, I saw a dream” (KAI 270:1–2); introducing a new
aspect of a subject: hlw bbyt ʾwkn “Look, with regard to BT ʾWKN” (KAI 233:9) (see DNWSI, 1:280).
 McAffee: A Reassessment of the Hebrew Negative Interrogative Particle hlʾ 123

problematic, since the expanded form hlny, vocalized al-li-ni-ya, exhibits a geminated l,
which is noticably absent from the Biblical Aramaic form ʾalūw. 57
At this point in the discussion one might be led to question the validity of the comparative
Aramaic data, especially as it relates to those dialects in close proximity to the biblical tradi-
tion. In suggesting the development *ha (inter.) + *lā (neg.) > *halā “Is it not?,” is the pres-
ence of the interrogative {h} in Biblical Aramaic halāʾ largely the result of Hebrew influence,
or can this feature be inherently Aramaic? If the interrogative {h} only occurs in Jewish
dialects of Aramaic, one might have to admit its Hebrew origin. Indeed, there is evidence
outside of the Jewish Aramaic dialects for the existence of an interrogative {h}. In the Ashur
ostracon, one finds a clear example of the interrogative {h}:
plsr [ys̆]ʾl hṣdʾ hny mlyʾ ʾlh
PN asks: “Are these words true?” (KAI 233:12)

There seems to be agreement among commentators that the initial {h} of hṣdʾ should be
interpreted as the interrogative, and one would be hard-pressed to find a better suggestion
contextually. 58 It is therefore unnecessary to assume automatically that the negative interrog-
ative particle of Biblical Aramaic must be due to Hebrew influence since the interrogative
{h} does appear outside the direct influence of Biblical Hebrew. Consequently, Aramaic has
the same potential that is inherent within the Hebrew language to form a negative interroga-
tive consisting of the negative particle + interrogative {h}.

usage of aramaic hlʾ in the targums

The situation in Targumic Aramaic mirrors that of Biblical Aramaic in that both of these
particles are extant, namely hlʾ and hlw. Moreover, the Targums provide three additional fea-
tures that have been largely overlooked in discussions relating to the negative interrogative
particle: 1) the fact that these are Aramaic translations of the Hebrew text yields important
data concerning how the interpreters understood the Hebrew particle halōʾ, 2) the occur-
rence of hlw in the Targums along with their Hebrew Vorlage serve to elucidate its usage in
Aramaic (at least in translation), and 3) the existence of hlʾ in Targumic expansions enables
one to ascertain its Aramaic function outside the context of translation. 59 The following sec-
tion will examine the occurrences of hlʾ in Targum Onqelos (hlw does not occur in Onqelos)
and hlʾ and hlw in Targum Neofiti in light of these unique features, in hopes that they might
lend additional clarity to the debate about Hebrew hlʾ.

57.  It should be noted here that although Biblical Aramaic ʾarūw is often cited as a by-form of ʾalūw (e.g.,
HALOT, 1824, following Bauer and Leander, Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramäischen [Halle, 1927], §266a, b), one
should be cautious on this connection, especially in light of the qetib-qere within the MT where one is to read final
-h instead of final -w (see Dan. 7:2; 7:5–7; 7:13). The Imperial Aramaic form apparently underlying the Biblical
Aramaic form is ʾrh (much less common than hlw), attested two times in a Hermopolis papyrus with the presenta-
tive meaning ‘behold’: wkʿt ʾrh spr lh s̆lḥty bs̆mh (TAD A2.4:5, 8). The form in Biblical Aramaic may have arisen
out of a confusion with the more prominent hlw, realized as ʾalūw therein. At any rate, the simple fact that Imperial
Aramaic attests both hlw and ʾrh in Egyptian Aramaic contexts makes it less likely that the latter should be derived
from the former. Also, one should not confuse this form with the later Jewish Aramaic conjunction ʾrwm (= Tg Onq
ʾry) ‘because, since’ (see Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period, 2d
ed. [Ramat-Gan, Israel: Bar Ilan University Press, 2002], 73b).
58. E.g., KAI 2, 285, and John C. L. Gibson, Textbook of Syrian Inscriptions 2 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), 108.
59.  It should be noted, however, that Hebrew influence likely extends to the expansions as well.
124 Journal of the American Oriental Society 135.1 (2015)

hlʾ in Targum Onqelos

In every instance of Hebrew halōʾ throughout the Pentateuch (30x), Targum Onqelos
translates this particle as halāʾ/helāʾ. 60 There are, however, three additional instances where
Onqelos utilizes halāʾ/helāʾ to translate something other than Hebrew halōʾ, all of which can
be read naturally as negative rhetorical questions:
• Gen. 4:24: ‫בעין ְו ִשבעָא‬ ִ ‫הלָא ְל ַלמַך ְב ֵריה ִש‬
ֲ ‫א ֵרי ִשבעָה ָד ִרין ִא ְת ִליּו ְל ָקיִן‬
ֲ “Since for seven
generations it was suspended for Cain, will it not be (suspended) for Lamek his
son seventy-seven?” The Hebrew utilizes a conditional construction here: ‫כי ׁשבעתים‬
‫“ יקם־קין ולמך ׁשבעים וׁשבעה‬Since Cain is avenged seven-fold, then Lamek seventy-
seven.”
• Gen. 30:2: ‫מעי‬ִ ‫ַלדא ִד‬
ָ ‫הלָא ִמן קדם יוי ִתבעַן ִדמנָע ִמנִיך ו‬ ֲ ‫“ ְה ִמנִי אַת בָעיָא‬Are you asking of
me? Is it not from before the Lord that you should ask, who has withheld from you
the offspring of the womb?” In this case, Aramaic halāʾ adds a second-person com-
ment before the relative clause which immediately follows the initial question in the
Hebrew: ‫“ התחת אלהים אנכי אׁשר־מנע ממך פרי־בטן‬Am I in the place of God who has
withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”
• Exod. 8:22: ‫גר ַמנָא‬ ְ ‫צראֵי ָד ְח ִלין לֵיה ְו ִאנּון יְהֹון ָחז ַן ְהלָא י‬
ְ ‫ֵימרּון ְל ִמ‬ ָ ‫ירא ְד ִמ‬
ָ ‫הָא נְדַ בַח יָת ְב ִע‬
“Behold, we would be sacrificing the cattle which the Egyptians worship, and they
would see us; would they not stone us?” Of interest here is the sense of the Hebrew
text, where this final clause is construed as a negative, necessitating one to read an
unmarked negative question, since a negative declarative would not make sense con-
textually: ‫“ הן נזבח את־תועבת מצרים לעיניהם ולא יסקלנו‬Behold, we would sacrifice the
abomination of Egypt before them; and would they not stone us?” Utilizing helāʾ as
a negative interrogative would allow the Targumist to preserve the negative sense of
the Hebrew, while at the same time attempting to make sense of the text by utilizing
a negative rhetorical question.

hlʾ and hlw in Targum Neofiti

The situation in Targum Neofiti exhibits a bit more variety than does Onqelos, though for
the most part it maintains consistency in its rendering of Hebrew helōʾ as Aramaic hlʾ (28 of
30x). 61 One should note the following two exceptions:
• Gen. 27:36: ‫“ הא לא שבקת לי חדא ברכה‬Behold, you have not left a single bless-
ing for me!” Unlike Onqelos, Neofiti chooses to emphasize the negative aspect of
Esau’s desperation in realizing that there remains no further blessing for him. The
Hebrew text reads: ‫“ הלא־אצלת לי ברכה‬Did you not reserve a blessing for me?” The
affirmative interpretation of the Hebrew particle does not make sense contextually,
since Esau has just stated that Jacob had stolen both his birthright and his blessing,
expressing here what seems to expect a negative response, rather than a positive one. 62

60.  Gen. 4:7; 13:9; 19:20; 20:5; 27:36; 29:25; 31:15; 34:23; 37:13; 40:8; 42:22; 44:5; 44:15; Exod. 4:11; 4:14;
14:12; 33:16; Num. 12:2; 12:14; 14:3; 22:30; 22:37; 23:12; 23:26; 24:12; Deut. 3:11 (Heb. halōh!); 11:30; 31:17;
32:6; 32:34.
61.  Gen. 4:7; 13:9; 19:20; 20:5; 29:25; 31:15; 34:23; 37:13; 40:8; 42:22; 44:5; Exod. 4:11(variant); 4:14; 14:12;
33:16; Num. 12:2; 14:3; 22:37; 23:12; 23:26; 24:12; Deut. 3:1; 11:30; 31:17; 32:34.
62.  It is important to note that this is not a rhetorical question in the Hebrew text, but a real question expecting
a response.
 McAffee: A Reassessment of the Hebrew Negative Interrogative Particle hlʾ 125

• Num. 12:14: ‫“ תתכנע מן קדמוי שבעה יומין‬She must humble herself before him for
seven days.” The Hebrew text: ‫“ הלא תכלם ׁשבעת ימים‬Would she not be humbled for
seven days?” Here, Neofiti leaves this Hebrew particle untranslated.
Neofiti provides a number of expansions in which hlʾ occurs independent of Hebrew
translation.
• Gen. 6:3: In response to the sons of God taking the daughters of men for wives, the
Lord states that none of the generations to come will be judged according to the judg-
ment of the flood-generation, and then retorts:‫הלא מחתם הוא קדמוי סדר דינא דדרʹ׳‬
‫“ דמבולא‬Is not the order of the judgment of the flood-generation sealed before him?”
Immediately following are two assertions introduced with hʾ ‘Behold!’ According to
such an interpretation, this expansion would then begin with a negative statement,
“No one else will be judged like the flood-generation,” followed by a negative rhe-
torical question “Is their judgment not sealed?,” and then two exclamatory remarks
introduced by hʾ: . . . ‫“ יהבית בבני אנשא הא רוחי‬Behold, I have set my spirit within
the sons of man . . .”; . . . ‫“ ארכא מאה ועשרין שנין הא יהבית לכון‬Behold, I have set for
you the span of one hundred and twenty years . . .”
• Gen. 44:18: This lengthy expansion manifests hlʾ as well as the presentative particle
hʾ + negative lʾ. The context is that of Judah pleading before governor Joseph upon
finding the royal cup in Benjamin’s bag, where the tone of Judah’s pleading is cer-
tainly deferential in the Hebrew text, but inflamatory here as Neofiti presents a threat-
ening Judah: ‫ הא‬. . . ‫הלא מן זמנא קדמייא דאתינן לוותך הוויית אמר לן מן קדם ייי אנה דחיל‬
‫“ לא אשתמע לך ולא אתני לך מה עבדו תרין אחיי שמעון ולוי בכרכא‬From the former time
that we came to you, were you not saying to us, ‘From before the Lord I fear’? . . .
Look, it must not have been heard by you, and it must not have been related to you
what my two brothers, Simeon and Levi, did to the city of Shechem!”
• Num. 34:21: Moses exclaims fearfully at the sight of Og, king of Butnin: ‫הלא דין הוא‬
‫“ עוג דהוה מחסד לאברהם ושרה‬Is this not Og, who was cursing against Abraham and
Sarah?”
• Deut. 1:1: The rhetorical force of this expression cannot be overstated, as Neofiti
heralds the first words out of the mouth of Moses in his Deuteronomistic address: ‫הלא‬
‫“ במדברה ובטורא דסיני איתיהיבת לכון אוריתה בני ישראל ובמישריה דמואב‬Was it not in
the desert and at Mount Sinai that Torah was given to you, O sons of Israel, and in the
plain of Moab?” This introductory comment is directly followed by another question
signaled by kmh.
• Deut. 33:2: ‫“ הלא גלי וידיע קדמוי‬Is it not revealed and known before me?”
One further example from Neofiti should be mentioned where the particle hlw shows up
with an affirmative sense:
• Num. 12:1: ‫ומללת מרים ואהרן במשה על עסק אתתה כושיתה די נסב והלו אתה כושיה הות‬
‫“ ציפורה אתתה דמשה‬Miram and Aaron spoke against Moses concerning the Cushite
woman whom he had taken; and behold, the Cushite woman was Zipporah, the wife
of Moses!” The sense of hlw is undoubtably presentative and more likely relates ety-
mologically and semantically to Biblical Aramaic’s ʾlw, contrary to its more popular
association with hlʾ. 63

63.  See Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, 165, where he briefly remarks: “Note the unique
spelling of ‫ הלו‬TN Num 12:1,” assuming that hlʾ is a variant of hlw. One might also compare this particle with
126 Journal of the American Oriental Society 135.1 (2015)

As the above examples from Targums Onqelos and Neofiti show, hlʾ serves as the default
interpretative particle for Hebrew halōʾ. Furthermore, none of the examples examined,
whether translation or expansion, necessitates a departure from the negative rhetorical ques-
tion interpretation, a fact that might lend support for the traditional etymology—interrogative
{h} + the negative particle for Hebrew halōʾ (i.e., as a negative rhetorical question)—being
operative for Aramaic hlʾ as well. In every case except two, Onqelos and Neofiti trans-
late Hebrew halōʾ with hlʾ; in the one case in which Neofiti utilizes something different, it
highlights the negative rather than the affirmative aspect of the Hebrew expression, making
an asseverative meaning unlikely. On the other hand, the sole example of hlw in Neofiti
exemplifies the asseverative particle more common in earlier Aramaic, which seems to have
undergone a development separate from that of hlʾ (interrogative {h} + negative lāʾ). 64 The
fact that both Biblical and Targumic Aramaic continue to utilize these two particles in dis-
cernably distinct ways makes it difficult to maintain that hlʾ is a conflation of the two; one
of the them would have to fall out of use and thus be replaced by the other. This does not
appear to be the case for Aramaic.

usage of hlʾ in inscriptional hebrew

Brief mention should be made of two important attestations of hlʾ throughout the known
corpus of Hebrew inscriptions, which have not figured at all in discussions about Biblical
Hebrew halōʾ. One comes from the Lachish collection, while the other appears in a recently
published ostracon from the Shephelah:
Lach. 6.8: ʾdny hlʾ tktb ʾlhm “My lord, will you not write to them [. . .]?” 65
Sheph. 1.2: hlʾ ts̆bny dbr ʿt kym “Will you not send me a report this very day?” 66

The final {ʾ} in these two attestations indicates that this compound particle (interrogative {h}
+ negative particle lōʾ) had a life all its own outside of Biblical Hebrew. Orthography aside,
in the case of the Lachish ostracon, if one were to argue for the possibility of an asseverative
force here, it would be awkward in this context, since in all likelihood the letter records the
appeal of an inferior to his superior. 67 The most natural explanation of hlʾ in this instance
would be an urgent, yet courteous question with the intent of invoking a positive reponse,
namely, a rhetorical question. On the other hand, the situation evinced in the ostracon from
Shephelah suggests hostility rather than politeness as the writer castigates his servant for
apparent disobedience. 68 The thrust of this rhetorical question is reinforced by the mere fact

Onqelos’s conditional asserverative pariticle ʾillūw, which also evinces a lu asseverative element: conditional ʾi(y)n +
asserverative lūw > ʾillūw. This particle occurs seven times throughout Onqelos, and translates a number of Hebrew
constructions: Gen. 46:30 (1cs cohorative); Lev. 10:19; Num. 12:14 (infinitive absolute); 22:29 (Heb. lūw); Deut.
32:27a (Onq ʾiyllūw lāʾ = Heb. lūwlēy); 32:27b (Heb. lūw).
64.  Cf. El Amarna allû (see CAD, 1:358), Ugaritic ʾal (RS 3.367iv/KTU 1.2i:13, 14, 15), and also Imperial
Aramaic hlw (DNWSI, 1:280), Biblical Aramaic ʾlw (BDB, 1080: Dan. 3:31; 4:7; 4:10; 7:8).
65.  On this ostracon, see F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp et al., Hebrew Inscriptions: Texts from the Biblical Period of the
Monarchy with Concordance (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2005), 322–24.
66.  On the Shephelah ostracon, see André Lemaire and Ada Yardeni, “New Hebrew Ostraca from the She-
phelah,” in Biblical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting: Typological and Historical Perspectives, ed. Steven
Fassberg and Avi Hurvitz (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 197–223.
67.  The opening address ʾl ʾdny yʾws̆ “To my lord Yaʾus̆” (Lach. 6.1) unquestionably indicates an inferior-
superior situation.
68.  Brongers (“Some Remarks,” 179) cites the following examples from the Hebrew Bible where hlʾ appears
with an “undertone of some reproach”: Abimelech in his defense to God (Gen. 20:5), Jacob to Laban (Gen. 29:25),
 McAffee: A Reassessment of the Hebrew Negative Interrogative Particle hlʾ 127

that he specifically states “I sent you,” followed by the interrogation “Will you not return
to me a report?” 69 The negative rhetorical question serves to press upon the recipient of the
letter the urgency of the matter, compelling him to fulfill his obligation.
It is also worth pointing out that thus far only hlʾ occurs throughout the Hebrew inscrip-
tions without any trace of the hypothetical *halū recently posited for Hebrew. Of course,
one cannot build an argument against its existence from silence alone, but in light of the
difficulties inherent in the recently proposed etymologies outlined above, its absence here
only serves up another strike against the proposal that Hebrew hlʾ represents the conflation
of halōʾ and halūʾ.

biblical hebrew hlʾ

Distribution of hlʾ/hlwʾ
By way of summary, it might be useful to address those matters of concern from the
Hebrew Bible that have motivated scholars to look beyond its confines for evidence of a
second etymology imbedded in halōʾ.
First, what can be said of the plene spelling hlwʾ? Does the appearance of an additional
waw in the consonantal text provide evidence for an earlier asseverative particle, later con-
fused at the Masoretic level? From a merely hypothetical standpoint such a confusion is
entirely plausible. In terms of what actually appears in the consonantal text, however, this
seems less likely. The plene spelling is the more common of the two, occurring 294 times
(71%) as opposed to the 120 instances (29%) of the non-plene form. 70 Do the plene forms
then represent the asseverative particle and the non-plene forms the negative interrogative? 71
Such a distinction in meaning is not reflected in this orthographic distinction. This observa-
tion is notably illustrated by those cases in which both forms occur within close proximity
of each other, exhibiting no discernable distinction in meaning. For example, both spellings
appear within the Balaam story, just a few verses apart:
Num. 22:30: ‫הלוא אנכי אתנך אׁשר־רכבת עלי מעודך עד־היום הזה ההסכן הסכנתי לעׂשות לך כה‬
Am I not your donkey which you have ridden still to this day? Have I ever been accustomed to
acting this way toward you?

In this context, hlwʾ naturally marks a negative rhetorical question parallel to the following
question marked with the interrogative {h}. 72 A few verses later, the non-plene form appears:
Num. 22:37: ‫הלא ׁשלח ׁשלחתי אליך לקרא־לך‬
Did I not certainly send for you to call to you?

From these two examples, it is difficult to argue contextually that the former is better suited
for an asseverative particle while the latter better fits the negative interrogative. The same
might be said of two further examples:

Reuben rebuking his brothers (Gen. 42:22); Miriam and Aaron in their dispute with Moses (Num. 12:2), Ahab to
Jehoshaphat (1 Kings 22:18), and Yahweh addressing his people Israel (Isa. 44:8).
69.  Lemaire and Yardeni (“New Hebrew Ostraca,” 198) comment: “As is well known from Biblical Hebrew,
the interrogative negative HLʾ probably has here an assertive meaning,” though they translate the statement as a
rhetorical question.
70.  For references, see n. 1.
71.  To my knowledge, no one seems to address this question in the literature on Hebrew hlʾ.
72.  Note also that the initial negative question should be of rhetorical force, strengthened by the fact that only
the second question solicits a response from Balaam.
128 Journal of the American Oriental Society 135.1 (2015)

1 Kings 1:11: ‫הלוא ׁשמעת כי מלך אדניהו בן־חגית ואדנינו דוד לא ידע‬
Have you not heard that Adonijah, son of Haggith, has become king, and our lord David
does not know (of it)?
1 Kings 1:13: ‫הלא־אתה אדני המלך נׁשבעת לאמתך‬
Have not you, my lord the king, sworn to your maidservant?

Setting aside for the moment the lack of a discernable distinction in usage between the
two, what can be made of the overall distribution of the plene versus the non-plene forms
throughout the Hebrew Bible? If two separate historical forms underlay these two spellings,
one might expect them to share a fairly even distribution. On the contrary, one finds more
evidence for a stylistic variation from one book to another. The most drastic examples of this
tendency can be found in Samuel, Chronicles, and Job. Without exception, Samuel utilizes
exclusively the plene form, 73 while in the cases of Chronicles and Job, only the non-plene
spelling appears. 74 Or what might be said of the Kings narrative, where the two are evenly
distributed (non-plene spelling 24x, plene spelling 20x)? 75 Such a discrepancy in the distri-
bution of plene versus non-plene spellings would be better accounted for on stylistic grounds
rather than as a hypothetical confusion of two historically distinct particles. Nonetheless, the
distribution of the two Biblical Hebrew orthographies and the consistent vocalization require
that, if two etymologies lie behind the forms, the two had fallen together into a single form
by the time that Biblical Hebrew as we know it came to be. 76

The Syntax of hlʾ

Recently, Adina Moshavi has devoted considerable attention to the syntactic distribution
of Biblical Hebrew halōʾ, arguing for the existence of a “clausal adverb” hlʾ based on her
proposed syntactic evidence. She points out that although the negative interrogative hlʾ and
the hypothetical clausal adverb hlʾ are indistinguishable in many syntactical contexts, there
are a number of cases where such a distinction is justifiable. 77
Moshavi builds her case upon a number of instances where the so-called negative inter-
rogative particle does not conform to the rules of normal word order for Hebrew finite
clauses, but instead resembles the syntactic behavior of other presentative particles (i.e.,
clausal adverbs). For example, she argues that the interrogative {h} normally occurs at the
head of the clause, while negative lōʾ immediately precedes the verb in sub-clausal negation
as opposed to clausal negation where the entire clause is treated as negative. 78 Based upon

73.  1 Sam. 1:8; 6:6; 9:20; 9:21; 10:1; 12:17; 15:17; 17:8; 17:29; 20:30; 20:37; 21:12; 23:19; 26:1; 26:14; 26:15;
29:3; 29:4; 29:5; 2 Sam. 2:26; 3:38; 4:11; 10:3; 11:3; 11:10; 11:20; 11:21; 13:4; 13:28; 16:19; 19:14; 19:23.
74.  1 Chr. 19:3; 21:3; 21:17; 22:18; 2 Chr. 9:29; 12:15; 13:5; 13:9; 16:8; 18:17; 20:6; 20:7; 20:12; 25:26; 28:10;
32:11; 32:12; 32;13; Job 1:10; 4:6; 4:21; 7:1; 8:10; 10:10; 10:20; 12:11; 13:11; 21:29; 22:5; 31:3; 32:4.
75.  hlʾ: 1 Kings 1:13; 14:29; 15:23; 15:31; 16:5; 16:20; 16:27; 18:13; 22:46; 2 Kings 4:28; 5:12; 14:15; 14:18;
14:28; 15:6; 15:36; 16:19; 18:27; 19:25; 20:20; 21:17; 21:25; 23:28; 24:5; hlwʾ: 1 Kings 1:11; 2:42; 11:41; 15:7;
16:14; 22:18; 22:39; 2 Kings 1:18; 2:18; 5:13; 6:11; 6:32; 8:23; 10:34; 12:20; 13:8; 13:12; 15:21; 18:22; 20:19.
76.  Rebecca Hasselbach (private communication) has also pointed out to me this well-known tendency for
the negative particle in general, which attests the plene spelling by itself (lōwʾ) and with an attached b- preposition
(belōwʾ) (see BDB, 518).
77.  Adina Moshavi, “Syntactic Evidence for a Clausal Adverb ‫ הלא‬in Biblical Hebrew,” JNWSL 33 (2007):
51–63. See also ead., “‫ הֲלֹא‬as Discourse Marker,” HS 48 (2007): 171–86; ead., “Can a Positive Rhetorical Question
Have a Positive Answer in the Bible?” JSS 56 (2011): 253–73.
78.  Moshavi, “Syntactic Evidence,” 55, citing R. D. Huddleson and G. K. Pullman, The Cambridge Grammar
of the English Language (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002), 789.
 McAffee: A Reassessment of the Hebrew Negative Interrogative Particle hlʾ 129

these strictures, it is argued that when interrogative {h} and negative lōʾ occur in a “preposed
finite clause,” the two should be separated by the preposed noun clause, as noted in the fol-
lowing example:
Gen. 18:25: ‫הׁשפט כל הארץ לא יעׂשה מׁשפט‬
Will the judge of all the earth not practice justice?

However, she argues, there are a number of instances where the interrogative {h} is not sepa-
rated from the negative particle and fronted according to the example cited above, but halōʾ
in its entirety is fronted, reflecting the syntax of clausal adverbs (e.g., hnh, hn, ʿl kn, etc.).
She cites the following example from Judges:
Judg. 11:7: ‫הלא אתה ׂשנאתם אותי‬
Do you not hate me?

For Moshavi, this syntactic distinction offers additional evidence for the existence of a
Hebrew particle hlʾ that is something other than the negative interrogative. She calls this
theoretical form a clausal adverb that in essence functions as a presentative particle resem-
bling hnh. 79
The theory espoused by Moshavi is certainly appealing on the syntactic level, since it
attempts to explain what looks like an anomaly for typical Hebrew clausal syntax. On the
other hand, this proposal does not take into consideration the etymological merits of posit-
ing two separate forms underlying halōʾ/halōwʾ, now confused in the Masoretic tradition, but
simply relies upon the earlier studies on the problem already cited in this study. The appeal to
syntax does not remove the etymological problems for proposing two separate Hebrew forms
as I have outlined them above, and therefore cannot provide the final word of the matter. On
the contrary, Moshavi’s syntactic evidence could point us in an entirely different direction,
namely, that halōʾ/halōwʾ is undergoing reanalysis as a single particle, irrespective of its sepa-
rate parts (i.e., interrogative {h} + negative lōʾ).

summary and conclusions

Etymology of hlʾ
In terms of etymology, the theories offered by grammarians thus far are not without dif-
ficulty. Though the presentative nature of Ugaritic hl is all but certain, the vocalized form
­al-li-ni-ya is difficult to reconcile with either hlʾ or hlwʾ in Hebrew for the following rea-
sons: 1) the absence of geminated lamed, 80 and 2) the quandary of resolving the /i/ vowel of
halliniya with the final /u/ vowel of the propounded *halū. 81 Clearly, the attempt to relate
this particle to EA allû cannot be maintained phonologically, as other scholars have already
aptly noted, and therefore must be abandoned. 82 Additionally, the attestations of hlʾ from
inscriptional Hebrew and the current absence of anything resembling an asseverative *halū
throughout casts yet another shadow of doubt on its very existence.

79.  Ibid., 61.

80.  Brown (“HL in Northwest Semitic,” 219) apparently skirts the problem by reconstructing either *halūwʾ or
*hallūwʾ, despite the fact that the evidence for the latter is entirely lacking in Hebrew, and thus highly speculative.
81.  It does not appear as though any consideration has been given to the attested vocalization of hlny by those
who affirm an etymological relationship between Ugaritic hl and Hebrew hlʾ.
82.  Rainey, “Some Presentation Particles,” 214; Sivan and Schniedewind, “Letting Your ‘Yes’ Be ‘No’,” 211;
contra Brown, “HL in Northwest Semitic,” 207–11.
130 Journal of the American Oriental Society 135.1 (2015)

Semantics of hlʾ
Perhaps the evidence as it currently stands on this matter should lead one to revisit ear-
lier formulations on the semantics of this form, namely that negative rhetorical questions
lead naturally to positive assertions. Practically speaking, one can reasonably argue for later
developments wherein this negative interrogative acquires an affirmative sense, since more
often than not its rhetorical effect assumes an affirmative answer. 83 One might compare the
English expression “Isn’t it?,” which has for the most part become the equivalent of “It is”
in popular usage. Such a development might explain those difficult cases in the Hebrew
Bible for which a negative rhetorical question feels awkward. 84 As far as Targums Onqelos
and Neofiti are concerned, none of the examples cited in this study bars a negative rhetorical
question interpretation, and neither do the Hebrew Vorlage they represent. So in the end, it
might be more prudent for Hebrew grammarians to return to where they left off from the
earlier explanations proposing a probable development from negative rhetorical question to
affirmation, since the more recently proposed etymologies create more questions than they
do answers.

83.  A similar conclusion is reached by Mastin, “The Meaning of halāʾ at Daniel IV 27,” 238, where he notes,
concerning the affirmatory use of hălōʾ, “This is a natural development from halôʾ = ‘nonne?,’ and Aramaic halāʾ
could either have come to signifiy ‘surely’ in the same way or have acquired this sense under the influence of
Hebrew halôʾ.” Note, however, that the affirmative sense does not always hold, as in the case of Targum Neofiti Gen.
23:36, where translators emphasize the negative sense of the expression, rendering Hebrew hlʾ with Aramaic hʾ lʾ.
84.  Note the examples listed by Brongers, “Some Remarks,” 180–88.
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