A Consideration of Some Unusual Ways of Expressing the Superlative in Hebrew 1)

Abstract

are formed like Arabic elative form j6 I\-may indeed be survivals from time when Hebrew knew elative formations 2). If they are, they are survivals in form only, for they have entirely lost any emphatic value they once may have had. Hebrew, then, resorted to other means to express superlative, and it developed quite remarkable variety of ways of doing so. Some of these ways are familiar to every student of language. There is, for example, way in which Hebrew uses an adjective which is determined by article, for example, lri?pl the (1 Sam. xvi 11); its use of an adjective followed by determined noun, e.g., r'13 b7? the youngest of his sons (2 Chron. xxi 17); its use of noun in construct state before same noun in genitive and in plural, e.g., aT 7!= t a slave of slaves, i.e., most abject of slaves (Gen. ix 25); its use of 1? before 5:, e.g., tO n . n_ 5:? anp (Gen. iii 1) more cunning than all beasts of field; its use of an adjective followed by a, e.g., nta3 noinl the fairest among women (Song i 8); its use of 't?i following an adjective; and its use of substantives, such as

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