Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Steve Miller" <smille10 AT sbcglobal.net>]

Ken,
thanks very, very much! that is exactly what I wanted to know.

>Driver provides some examples of wayyiqtol for the present in the
Pentateuch:
>Gen 19:9; 31:15; 32:5; 49:24; Ex 4:23; Num 22:11.
>He was not sure about Dt 33:27-28.

All of these make sense to be past tense except Ex 4:23. But even in Ex
4:23, NASB translates the 2 vav-consecutives as past tense.

>Leslie McFall (_The Enigma of the Hebrew Verbal System_) counts the
following numbers of times the wayyiqtol is >translated by the present or
future, respectively:

>Gen: 3, 0
>Ex:  3, 2
>Lev: 0, 0
>Num: 2, 0
>Dtr: 8, 1

>By way of comparison, the number of times wayyiqtol is translated by the
past in the RSV:

>Gen: 2096
>Ex:  855
>Lev: 188
>Num: 730
>Dtr: 239

>That's 99.5% past, BTW. Some would call this high percentage a coincidence
due to pragmatics.

What does that mean, a coincidence due to pragmatics?

>The problem with conceiving of the Hebrew verbal system as a tense system
has little to do with the wayyiqtol used for the >future, but more to do
with the qatal used for the future, and especially with yiqtol used for the
past. The weqatal is a more >complex question, since one would have to
determine whether the vav was "conversive" or "conjunctive".

Do you have any examples or statistics on qatal used for the future or
yiqtol used for the past and or of weqatal as conversive and conjuctive?

>I hope this is helpful.
very much!

thanks,
Steve Miller
Detroit


> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Steve Miller
> Sent: May 22, 2005 6:16 PM
> To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] The mystery of vav-consequtive
>
> Can anyone give me 5 examples from the Pentateuch where the
> vav-consecutive
> is clearly NOT a tense reversal?