Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Paul Zellmer <zellmer AT cag.pworld.net.ph>]

Rolf Furuli wrote:

> I would also like to bring three yiqtol examples (RSV):
>
> Job 3:3  "Let the day perish wherein I was born (yiqtol) , and the night
> which said,  'A man-child is conceived.'(qatal)»
> Deut. 32:10 ¶  "He found him (yiqtol) in a desert land, and in the howling
> waste of the wilderness; he encircled (yiqtol) him, he cared for (yiqtol)
> him, he kept him (yiqtol) as the apple of his eye."
> Ex. 15:5 The floods cover (sic RSV) them (yiqtol); they went down (qatal)
> into the depths like a stone.
>
> The verbs "perish", "find" and "cover" are telic, and they are used in a
> setting of past time, so their ends must be reached and passed.
> (4) Is yiqtol a tense (for example (+future)?
> (5) If so, how can it be used with past meaning?
> (6) If it is not a tense, what is then its meaning?

Rolf,

In Job 3:3, I see the word for perish as a jussive, not having a
"past" meaning, at
least in this case.  Logically, I'm sure you could ask how a day
that occurred in the
past could not also perish in the past.  Yet, in this volitional
discourse, it seems
to be treated as "non-past," although I would not go so far as to
claim that it is
[+fut].

In the same verse, the word )iWWfLeD is indeed yiqtol, possibly
an poetically modified
relative clause [with an implied )a:$eR].  But even this appears
to be more present
and durative rather than past or future.  It is as if Job moves
back in time to the
day of his birth and then makes his wish.  So even if yiqtol is a
tense or is marked
for a tense, once again I do not see this as a clear example of
the use of yiqtol to
mark a purely past time event.

Similarly, I do not see [+past] as necessary in Deuteronomy
32:10.  If one accepts
Moses as the writer of this book, where are the Children of
Israel at this time?  In
the desert, of course.  So God would be finding them and
encircling them and all the
rest *at that time*.  Even if you hold to a later date of
writing, the appearance that
it was written during the exodus would still be a natural item to
preserve.  Could it
have been stated as [+past]?  Sure.  But my contention is that it
did not need to be.
So once again, using the tense in an English translation may not
be a sure indication
of the mindset of the writer.

Then, in Exodus 15:5, *you* assume that the RSV translators make
a mistake.  Hence
your use of [sic].  But I see that they apparently recognized the
use of a non-past
clause for vividness.  The first clause, the yiqtol clause, is
treated like the author
and readers are right there, watching.  The second clause, the
qatal clause, yanks us
back into realizing it's a past event.

I don't know how you're going to look at this response.  But it
appears to me like the
jury is still out on the three examples you cite here.

HTH,

Paul
---
Paul and Dee Zellmer, Jimmy Guingab, Geoffrey Beltran
Ibanag Translation Project
Cabagan, Philippines

zellmer AT faith.edu.ph