Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ken Penner" <pennerkm AT mcmaster.ca>]

Evgeny wrote:

> I was thinking recently about the mystery of vav-consequtive. 
> My understandning is that the first imperfect verb brings the 
> reference point in time to the event of that first action, 
> and then all consequtive verbs would be in the future as seen 
> from that reference point in time. This is a different sense 
> of time compared to modern languages. 

A problem with this hypothesis is that some independent books *begin* with a
waw-consecutive (e.g., Jonah). There is no preceding verb setting up the
reference time.

A second problem: if this hypothesis were correct, we should expect the verb
form used in future sequences (e.g., of instructions) to be waw-consecutive
imperfect as well. Instead, we get waw consecutive *perfect*.

Thirdly, there does not appear to be a different "sense of time" in ancient
languages compared to modern languages. As Beat Zuber demonstrated, the
ancient Greek and Latin translators of the Hebrew Bible regularly translated
the Hebrew perfect and waw-consecutive imperfect by aorist, imperfect,
perfect, and pluperfect verbs, and the Hebrew imperfect and waw-consecutive
perfect by future and subjunctive verbs. Zuber's evidence suggest that those
ancients (of the few centuries before and after the turn of the era) saw the
tense system as based on tense or mood. And finally, compare the tense
system of Aramaic.

Ken

Ken Penner, Ph.D. cand., McMaster University
M.C.S. (Biblical Languages, Greek Focus), M.A. (Hebrew Poetry)
pennerkm AT mcmaster.ca
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