Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Greg Doudna <gd AT teol.ku.dk>]

Thank you Rolf Furuli for the detailed discussion relative to 
the question of how biblical Hebrew would express a temporal
period beginning in the past and ending in the future.  Your
direct answer to the question seems to be:

        (I do not think you will find any
> situation expressed by a single verb including both a point in the past
> and
> an endpoint in the future).
> 
> 
I agree that I can find no biblical Hebrew examples of a case by 
which to find an example of how this was done.  But surely this 
must be simple accident.  Surely there must have been occasions 
to speak of "from X (past) until Y (future) <such and such has 
happened and will continue to happen until then...>".

There are two possibilities.  One is that the lack of examples is 
simply and trivially simple accident that none happen to be present
in the biblical collection of literature.  The other is that there is some
rule "this cannot be done" with a simple verb, and that there may 
be examples in biblical Hebrew of situations in which this kind of 
condition was expressed or solved through alternative means.
If so, I have not been able to think of any, but solicit examples 
from others.  Rolf's examples of "from that day until now" in biblical
Hebrew are common (as Rolf notes).  Hypothetically, one could 
express past-future start and endpoints simply by two sentences
in succession.  "From X until now <something has always 
happened>.  And from now until Y <this will continue to be the 
case>."  But that is two clauses and two verbs.

The issue is whether it is impossible, or possible but just rare, to
express a past-future temporal period (fixed termini at each end)
with ONE verb or verb construction.  And if it is claimed to be
impossible, why?  What is there about, e.g. a YQTL or any other
form of verb permitting iterative or continuing state, that could not
in principle be used in such a case?

Is the lack of example of this in biblical Hebrew accidental or 
rule-based?  And if it is rule-based, what is the rule?

> (8) 1 Kings 12:19 So Israel has been in rebellion (WAYYIQTOL) against the
> house of David to this day.
> 
> (9) 2 Chronicles 35:25 Jeremiah also uttered (WAYYIQTOL) a lament for
> Josiah; and all the singing men and singing women have spoken (WAYYIQTOL)
> of Josiah in their laments to this day.
> 
> In (8) and (9) we find WAYYIQTOLs, and the viewpoint is exactly the same
> as
> in the other examples: Actions started at some point in the past, they
> were
> repeated and were ongoing at the time of writing, and they would continue
> into the future. And this is not signaled by the verb form. 
> 
These examples indeed illuminate the uses of varying verb forms
for essentially indistinguishable meaning in these structures.
However the question is whether it is possible to speak directly of
a past endpoint and a future endpoint, without "until this day" 
(which is a present endpoint).

Since there seem to be no examples in the Bible, it may be asked
whether this question has any practical utility.  The practical utility
is in interpretation of expressions in Qumran texts, where in at
least two cases known to me, there are MN....'D expressions with
specific startpoint in the past and endpoint in the future.  In the 
one case (4QpNah 3-4 i 3) the verb used is frustratingly missing 
due to a lacuna (but some single verb or two-word verbal structure 
is necessarily the maximum that can have been used from spacing 
considerations).  In the other case (CD 19.35-20.1) the verb used 
is visible and it is a simple imperfect (YQTL).  (But someone could 
challenge the CD case: is the startpoint there in CD really in the 
past as commonly understood?  But in the 4QpNah example the 
startpoint is unambiguously in the past.)

There is no significant, rule-based differences between biblical 
Hebrew and the Hebrew of the "yachad" texts in terms of verb 
uses that I can see, apart from certain statistical frequency 
observations.  Any notion of innovative or new rules in uses of verbs 
in Qumran "yachad" texts appears unproven.  Another way of 
expressing this is that what is often called "Qumran Hebrew" (which 
is actually a subset of the actual range of Hebrew of the Qumran text 
finds; the term as used is usually meant to refer to the Hebrew 
of the "yachad texts") is part of the spectrum of biblical Hebrew, and
is not Mishnaic Hebrew, which shows significant development and
differences.  (MH in fact is represented in proto-form in several 
Qumran texts, but none of those texts are in the "yachad" text
cluster.)  By "yachad texts" I mean minimally the D, S, H, and M
series (Damascus, Serekh, Hymns, War Rule), and the
pesharim, with the cluster identified on the basis of shared
distinctive terms, in some cases unique, to texts of the cluster.  

Based on the two examples from Qumran texts cited above, as well
as a failure to comprehend any logical reason why it should be
otherwise, it seems to me an imperfect or YQTL (and by implication, 
other simple verb structures) should be acceptable means of
expression in these cases in biblical Hebrew.  But I would welcome
a good opposing argument, because we might learn something here.

Greg Doudna
Copenhagen