A Narrative Pattern and Its Role in Source Criticism

The narrative portions of the Pentateuch (and the Deuteronomistic History) betray a consistent pattern in which commands are fulfilled by the same verb, in the same binyan, in the waw-consecutive, with virtually no intervening text. Because the pattern is uniform across all books and sources, it is shown that when the pattern does not function as expected, we are justified in looking for a source-critical seam. Most importantly, source-critical disputes over the precise demarcation of textual blocks can be resolved by means of this pattern.