Biblical Hebrew Forum

[spedrson AT juno.com (Trevor M Peterson)]

On Wed, 9 Dec 1998 18:07:49 -0800 (PST) lakr <lakr AT netcom.com> writes:
>Please forgive this question if it reveals how little I know about
>biblical Hebrew.

What is there to forgive?
>
>Is the verb YKRA (call) in Is 9:6(5)  what is considered a
>Waw-consecutive ?

Yes, that is one way of refering to it.
>
[snipped]

>is there something in the grammar that causes the English
>translations to use the future tense ?

I'm not really qualified to address the larger question of tense & aspect
either, but it does help to keep in mind that in Hebrew we're generally
dealing with a very lose tense structure, if any at all.  It's really
more a matter of aspect involved with the different conjugations.  The
way that Waltke & O'Connor explain this construction is to say that the
wayyiqtols pick up their sense of timing from YLD, which even though it
is in the form we call "perfect" (probably perfective is better) does
seem to refer here to a future idea, seen as a unit.  The wayyiqtols
would then preserve that future idea.  Of course, some English
translations render YLD as more of a past or perfect idea in English,
which I guess would cloud this line of thinking.

Trevor Peterson
Bible/Theology Department
Washington Bible College
Lanham, MD

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