Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Ken,

In my list of 965 perfects (QATAL and not WEQATAL) in the whole Tanach,
where reference time comes after the deictic point (future reference), 91
are from the Psalms. Three or four of these are "future perfect" and the
rest are simple future. This indicates that there are about as many QATALs
with future reference in the Psalms as elsewhere.

I will use the opportunity to ask the list for a definition of "prophetic
perfect" which is not a tautology. In my view the term is meaningless, and
it was coined in the first place to try to explain away the simple fact
that QATAL (without WAW) often has future reference.


Regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo



>How common are the so-called "prophetic perfects" in the Psalms?
>
>Waltke&O'Connor and GKC don't give examples from Psalms, and I don't have
>Diethelm Michel's study on tenses in the Psalms with me today.
>
>E. Puech wants to take the perfect verbs of salvation in the Hodayot as
>prophetic perfects. I'm trying to determine how unusual this would be.
>
>Ken Penner
>Ph.D. student, Biblical Field (Early Judaism)
>McMaster University
>Hamilton, Canada
>