Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Michael Abernathy <mabernathy AT isot.com>]

Vadim,
You said,
"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."

Perhaps, my difficulty in agreeing with you comes from the fact that my native language is English. It is possible to use the present tense in a narrative sense for the past but one cannot use the future tense to refer to past events as one can in Hebrew. Nor could I use the past tense for future events as the Perfect is occasionally used in Hebrew. You don't need context to decide if "H will come" refers to a future or past event. You do need that context in Hebrew. 

To be fair, I have not had the time to do thorough analysis. However, 
glancing over the first chapter of Ruth, I found that the author frequently 
used the imperfect for past events. Looking at the first chapter of Exodus, I 
see that the author frequently chose the imperfect for past events--Joseph 
died (verse 6), the children of Israel . . . increased . . . multiplied. . . 
and grew . . . and the land was filled (verse 7), a new king arose (verse 8), 
he said (verse 9), etc. A cursory examination of the text suggests that only 
context makes it appropriate to translate the imperfect as a future tense.

The theory I was taught was that the imperfect carried the idea that the 
action is not completed. That would make the imperfect the natural and most 
common way of conveying that an event occurs in the future. However, that 
does not necessitate translating it as future.

I don't see an advantage to consistently translating the imperfect as a future tense.  The traditional understanding of the imperfect forces the interpreter to decide from the context whether the verb should be translated as a future tense or if it is better rendered in another way. On the other hand, the insistence that the imperfect is normally future makes that the preferred translation. No thought would be given to the possibility that another translation might be more appropriate if the future tense made sense. 

Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy