Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>]

> >Often, but not necessarily. I guess, an excited person in the emphatic
> >speech is lax about grammar. Future-present combination is common;
> >past-present is less so ("every time I met him, I say him"); future-past
is
> >also rare ("every time as I will meet him, I told him"); present (with
> >participle) - present is also encountered ("every time as I meet him, I
tell
> >him").
>
> OK, so we are talking about informal non-standard speech. That helps to
> explain things. And the same kinds of things do happen in English, but
> not entirely freely. Of course we might doubt the relevance of this to
> biblical Hebrew.
>

I wouldn't call it non-standard. Not common, yes, but literary. In fact,
future tense-for-past reference is more common in old literature, written in
the form of recital.
We might doubt, but this fully explains Rolf's cases without the need to
abrogate tenses. In view of other very strong similarities between Russian
and Hebrew, I personally have little doubt.

Vadim Cherny