Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Lee R. Martin" <lmartin AT vol.com>]

Dear Ken,
I looked at all of the texts in your list and Dave's.  You are correct that
HYH is not always future tense. However, HYH is not used as present tense.
Every one of these uses of HYH can easily be explained as frequentative past
or modal.  None of them are simple present tense.  Thus, the statement in Ex
3 would be either "I WILL be (modal)  what I shall be" or "I WILL be what I
have been."
Lee R. Martin

----- Original Message -----
From: "Penner" <pennerkm AT mcmaster.ca>
To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 10:33 AM
Subject: Re: I WILL BE


> Shoshanna Walker wrote:
>
> > Please, then cite an example from some OTHER place in the Torah, where
> > "Ehyeh" is not future
>
> In the Torah (Pentateuch), all other instances of the first person
singular
> prefix conjugation "ehyeh" refer to future time; all are God speaking,
> promising his presence.
>
> As for the rest of the Tanak, examples of present time reference of
"ehyeh"
> might include:
>
> Hosea 1:9 "I am not yours" (in parallel with a verbless clause).
> Psalm 50:19 "you thought I was"
> Job 3:16 "Why was I not as a hidden untimely birth"
> Job 10:19 "would that I ... were as though I had not been"
> Job 12:4 "I am a laughingstock" (in parallel with a verbless clause)
> Job 17:6 "I am one before whom" (in parallel with a suffix conjugation
verb)
> Prov 8:30 "I was beside him" "I was his delight" (when he marked out the
> foundations of the earth)
> Ruth 2:13 "though I am not one of your maidservants"
> 1Chr 17:5 "I have gone" (since the day I led up Israel to this day)
> 1Chr 17:8 "I have been with you wherever you went [suffix conjugation]"
>
> The other 40 instances of "ehyeh" have future time reference.
>
> Ken Penner
> Ph.D. student, Biblical Field (Early Judaism)
> McMaster University
> Hamilton, Canada
>
>
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