Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

How about "I am becomming what I am becomming"?

Good explanation, Uri.

It was explained to me that the ancient Semite experienced
life as though a rower on a row-boat. He sees the past
perfectly; the present (if he turns his head) is past/has passed in an
eye-blink. The future he sees not at all.
Thus, we have a perfect tense for the past,
and an imperfect one for everything else.

Liz Fried

> -----Original Message-----
> From: uri hurwitz [mailto:uhurwitz AT yahoo.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 12:16 PM
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: Re: I AM
>
>
>
>     Shoshana, what is in  modern Hebrew the future, e.g. ehyeh, had a
> totally different sense in biblical usage: it was the "imperfect", that is
> an action that was not concluded ( as against the "perfect" which refers
> to the past. Both of these senses can be further refined as you may have
> seen in recent exchanges on this list)
>      Thus imprecise as it is, the only possible translation of Ehyeh asher
> Ehyeh
>  is: I am/will be whoever I am/will be.
>     Uri Hurwitz
>
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