Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au>]

For classical Biblical Hebrew:
Present tense usually uses the imperfect since it is an incompleted
action. The participle tells us more about the action itself (durative)
than about when it occurs or how it occurs. Thus, for an immediate
future, you would probably use a participle. For an ordinary future
action with no immediacy, you'd use an imperfect. Seow's grammar gives
examples for these.

For non-classical Biblical Hebrew (such as the language of Qohelet):
Mishnaic rules seem to be the vogue in which the participle starts to be
understood as a present tense, and imperfect as a future tense.

Best regards,
GEORGE ATHAS
Dept of Semitic Studies,
University of Sydney
- Email: gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au
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