Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

on vayyiqtol, rodney duke wrote:
>  It seems the best way to capture this in English is
> with the present tense

well, how does one say this?
no, that isn't what biblical hebrew is doing.

1. "present" is not the way hebrew storytelling is done. 
      simple test:     take the most common hebrew verb.
e.g. check out every example of vayyomer and X-amar in genesis narrative. 
you will NOT find X-yomar, nor the default present tense "Subject--omer",
only amar and vayyomer (pause:vayyomar).
[for X-amar: gn.3.16, 17; 13.14; 18.17; 20.16; 27.6; (31.29; 38.11); 44.4] 
BH tells Hebrew stories in the past. surprise! :-)

2. because in future/imperfective sequences veqatal is used. (if yiqtol was
wanted, or a 'present', why use veqatal?)

3. vayyiqtol can switch from other material to refer to a perfective/past
event all by itself.

[if you're still having trouble, then 4: trust the literalistic LXX here.
it did not choose imperfect for vayyiqtol most of the time, even though
greek commonly allows imperfect in past narratives. vayyiqtol and greek
aorist indicative have broad overlap and both are perfectives. the LXX was
translated by bi/tri/quadri-linguals when people were still using and
writing literary Hebrew, i.e. BH, as well as speaking various hebrew
dialects. they knew hebrew well enough. ] (i am not saying that you cannot
know BH without the LXX, simply that it broadly confirms what you should
already know.)

braxot
randall buth
velo yada`ti lomar benimus uveHen le`umat de`a zo ["hasafa lo hivdila ben
vayyiqtol leven yiqtol"] ki avuda hi velo `ivrit miqrait.