Psalm 133/Notes/Lexical.v. 1.924352
v. 1b – The word הִנֵּה is a particle of deixis, that is, it points to something, whether a concrete entity in the discourse context or a proposition (see Atkinson forthcoming).[1] The proposition to which to addressee's attention is drawn by the deictic particle can range from totally presupposed—usually in order to ground another proposition—to totally unexpected and surprising. In combination with the following twofold exclamative מָה, which communicate totally presupposed content (see García Macías 2016), הִנֵּה likewise presents presupposed propositional content. Since the poem's content is limited to the exclamatives (v. 1), two similes (vv. 2-3a), and their justification (v. 3b), the grounded speech act (the "So what?" of the psalm) is left implicit (see our speech act analysis).[2]
- ↑ Atkinson, I. 2025. "הִנֵּה and הֵן clauses," in The Cambridge Grammar of Biblical Hebrew. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers & University of Cambridge.
- ↑ In this sense, "Psalm 133 is a psalm that starts but never really ends" (Zevit 1986, 356). On the other hand, the intended perlocutionary effect is to desire "the picture of brothers dwelling together in verse 1 ... representing idealized the reunification of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms" (Berlin 2023, 69).