This article responds to the innovative and stimulating research by Ellen van Wolde in a previous volume of Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. She claims that the Niphal is middle voice and can be passive, ‘if (and only if) an external argument, coded as an external Agent, is present’. My research however, demonstrates that such a description of the passive is both inadequate in view of the world’s languages and incongruent with Niphal. In addition, my response lays bare how such a prescription of the middle voice to the Niphal in the Hebrew Bible is circulus probando and unconvincing.

中文翻译：

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聆听尼法尔的“声音”：对艾伦·范·沃尔德的回应

本文是对Ellen van Wolde在先前的《旧约研究杂志》上的创新和刺激性研究的回应。她声称Niphal是中间声音，并且可以是被动的，“（如果（且仅））存在被编码为外部Agent的外部论点”。然而，我的研究表明，对于被动语态的这种描述既不足以说明世界上的语言，又与Niphal不一致。另外，我的回答暴露了希伯来语圣经中对尼法尔的这种中间声音的处方是如何绕圈传播和令人信服的。