Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

> Personally, I find that the examples of the imperfect being used for the
past
> and present tense make it difficult to promote the idea that the imperfect
> should always be translated as a future tense.
> Note:
> Present tense
> Deuteronomy 1:44 "they pursued you, as the bees do"

as the bees would do.

> Genesis 32:32 "the children of Israel do not eat"

would not eat
In Russian, that would be a regular future tense, не съедят

> Genesis 37:15 "What seekest thou?"
what would you like to find


> Past tense
> Judges 11:40 "the daughters of Israel went from year to year"

would annually lament

As in other languages, grammatical future tense in Hebrew might rarely refer
to the current or past events, usually because of the deictic centre shifts.
This does not invalidate the predominantly standard usage of tenses: future
tense generally refers to future events. When it is not, this is explicit
from the context. None of your examples leaves a slightest doubt about the
time reference. Ex3:14, on the contrary, contains no time reference, and so
there is no grammatical reason to prefer "I am" to "I will be."

E.g., Gen32:32.  When you hear, "they would not eat," your first impression
is that they would not eat in the future. Supplied with more information,
you might realize the deictic centre shift, and that this is not a warning,
but a narration of the past event. Absent of such details, you assume the
phrase is about the future. This is the proper attitude to Ex3:14.

Vadim Cherny