01_van Wieringen_481-497_481-497 10/12/15 10:10 Pagina 485 485 THE “I”-FIGURE’S RELATIONS IN THE POEM IN ISA 38,10-20 485 ure state what the “he”-figure actually said to him. Therefore, I con- sider the words of the Lord to the “I”-figure to be present ellipti- cally: the “he”-figure’s words are spoken, but not specified. Nevertheless, these “missing” words form the basis of the change in the poem 10: they are responsible for both the semantic change as well as for the “I”-figure’s full communication with the Lord, instead of only focussing on himself. This ellipsis must be located exactly in between vv. 14 and 15 11. This position of the ellipsis is strengthened by the semantic re- lation between the “I”-figure speaking in v. 15 and in vv. 10-14. Firstly, a contrast between v. 15 and vv. 10-11 is expressed: whereas, at the beginning of the poem, the “I”-figure indicates him- self as the speaking character, expressed by the verb rma and the separate personal pronoun yna, in v. 15 he states that he cannot speak a word, using not rma but rbd, and by no longer using a separate personal pronoun in reference to himself. Secondly, a contrastive parallelism appears in the speech of the “I”-figure: after having stated that there is nothing to speak of, he nevertheless does speak in vv 16-19 12. As was the case in vs. 14d, the direct speech in vv. hand, since this ellipsis is about an act of speaking, it would be better to dis- tinguish a subtype for cases such as Isa 38,15. For example, the unspecified direct speech by God to Abraham in Gen 22,3, indicated by the qatal-form rma, also belongs to this type of ellipsis; see A.L.H.M. VAN WIERINGEN, “The Reader in Genesis 22,1-19”, EstBíb 53 (1995) 289-304, here 302. 10 Changes in the state of mind of the poet often occur in hymnic texts. Nevertheless, the situation in the poem of Isaiah 38 cannot be described prop- erly by using the idea of the so-called Stimmungsumschwung. The problem lies not so much in the fact that the developments in Hezekiah’s poem take place gradually, but rather in the fact that a verbum dicendi is used to indicate an activity of speaking performed by the divine character, whereas direct speeches are usually not involved in a so-called Stimmungsumschwung. For a thorough discussion of Stimmungsumschwung see B. WEBER, “Zum soge- nannten ‘Stimmungsumschwung’ in Psalm 13”, The Book of Psalms. Compo- sition and Reception (eds. P.W. FLINT – P.D. MILLER) (OT.S 99; Leiden 2005) 116-138, especially 126-136. 11 Pace T.K. CHEYNE, The Prophecies of Isaiah (London 1880, 41886) 232, who does observe the ellipsis (although without using the word “ellipsis”), but eliminates the ellipsis by referring to Isa 38,5-8, a text outside of the poem. P.K. TULL, Isaiah 1–39 (Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary; Macon, GA 2010) 552, correctly describes v. 15 as a turning point, but without noticing the ellipsis. 12 Because the interrogative word hm (“what?”) refers only to things (see J. TOUZARD, Grammaire hébraïque abrégée [Paris 1905] 190 [§ 135b];