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  • From: furuli AT online.no
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Isaiah 53
  • Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 09:09:40 +0200

Dear Vadim,

It appears that you do not realize that the Hebrew conjugations do not necessarily signal tense - and I claim that the don't. So the QATAL of 52:14 is not necessarily past. To get an introduction to the problems of Hebrew verbs and their time references, I recommend Cook, J. A. (2002) "The Biblical Hebrew Verbal System A Grammaticalization Approach, University of Wisconsin- Madison. This doctoral dissertation is the best discussion of the Hebrew verbs I have seen. My own dissertation, which will be completed in two months, will express many conclusions that differ from Cook, but his work is scholarly and balanced, and his conclusions deserve to be seriously considered.

How would you have reacted if a WAW was prefixed to the QATAL of 52:14? Would you then have said that the verb is past? Cook draws the following interesting conclusion regarding QATAL and WEQATAL: "In conclusion, there is no evidence that qatal and weqatal are separate and independent conjugations or that they have different origins. The only distinction by which qatal and weqatal can be distinguished is a syntactic one: weqatal clauses are always VS word order (hence the designation weqatal) whereas qatal clauses are often SV." He then says that weqatal is modal and qatal indicative.

I agree that there is no difference between the two forms - weqatal is a qatal with the conjunction WAW prefixed. Weqatal is often modal but in many cases it signals future indicative. In the prophets there are hundreds of both forms with future indicative meaning.


Best regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo




Dear Rolf,

Perhaps I missed something...
Both verbs in 52:14 are in the past, clear and simple. Why future?


Best regards,

Vadim


"52:14 puts
the suffering in the *past*"? I note that the LXX has future verbs in
this verse, one translates the Hebrew QATAL and the other translates
a Hebrew substantive. I take v. 14 as simple future, just as does the
LXX. Why should I not?

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