The Masoretic Text of Haggai 2.7b in light of verbal valency patterns

Abstract

This article looks to verbal valency analysis to help clarify the meaning of the difficult clause ובאו חמדת כל הגוים‎ in Hag. 2.7b, and so the verse as a whole. Attention to the verb’s valency patterns (i.e., בוא‎ [ qal]) presents a fresh interpretive option that is both contextually fitting and (unlike previous proposals) linguistically robust. These patterns suggest that the cryptic phrase כל חמדת הגוים‎ is not the subject (so most) but a descriptor for the Jerusalem temple naming the locative goal of the clause’s motion verb. This analysis identifies כל הגוים‎ of the previous clause as the subject, yielding the following rendering of the verse: ‘And I (Yahweh) will shake all the nations so that they will come to “the desire of all the nations” (i.e., the temple), in order that I may fill this house with glory, declares the Lord of Hosts’.