Psalm 95/Notes/Grammar.v. 7c.460461

v. 7c – The final clause of this verse could be understood as a calculated aposiopesis (see, e.g., the CEB's "If only you would listen to his voice!" cf. EÜ, NABRE, NET, ZÜR; so GKC §151e),^[1] such that the focal content of the sentence (in this case the apodosis) is not explicitly voiced and is left for the addressee to fill in the consequence. Cf., e.g., אִם־תִּקְטֹ֖ל אֱל֥וֹהַּ׀ רָשָׁ֑ע "Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!" (Ps 139:19, ESV). For a full discussion of the syntactic possibilities of this verse, see the exegetical issue, https://psalms.scriptura.org/w/The_Syntax_of_Ps_95:7-8#cite_ref-3. If read as the conditional protasis leading into v. 8, however (as our preferred reading), the RVC (as also discussed in Briggs & Briggs 1906-7, 295) emends the MT to provide the 1cs suffix on voice: "If today you hear my voice" (Si hoy escuchan ustedes mi voz). There is no Hebrew manuscript or ancient versional evidence for this emendation, so it has not been considered as a viable alternative reading.

↑ Aposiopesis is defined as a “Lapse into silence before the construction of a sentence is completed” (Matthews 2014). While the syntactic characteristic simply involves ‘an unfinished sentence’, the rhetorical motivations vary. Lausberg divides the function of aposiopesis into two groupings: the emotive aposiopesis, in which the presence of intense passion disrupts the utterance (see Dimit 2006) and the calculated aposiopesis, either as a politness strategy (see Zago 2022), to avoid a sense of shame or taboo, or simply seeking “to spare the audience from having to listen to the contents of the section of the speech that is about to end, in order to gain immediately their all the stronger interest in the new section” (Lausberg 1998, §888). See further Atkinson, "Aposiopesis, Anacoluthon & Compound Subordinate Clauses," forthcoming),

[1] Aposiopesis is defined as a “Lapse into silence before the construction of a sentence is completed” (Matthews 2014). While the syntactic characteristic simply involves ‘an unfinished sentence’, the rhetorical motivations vary. Lausberg divides the function of aposiopesis into two groupings: the emotive aposiopesis, in which the presence of intense passion disrupts the utterance (see Dimit 2006) and the calculated aposiopesis, either as a politness strategy (see Zago 2022), to avoid a sense of shame or taboo, or simply seeking “to spare the audience from having to listen to the contents of the section of the speech that is about to end, in order to gain immediately their all the stronger interest in the new section” (Lausberg 1998, §888). See further Atkinson, "Aposiopesis, Anacoluthon & Compound Subordinate Clauses," forthcoming),

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