Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

> > > > Present tense
> > > > Genesis 32:32 "the children of Israel do not eat"
> >
> > would not eat
> > Grammatical future tense is used for repeated or continuous action.
> This is not future in English or Hebrew.

It is derivative usage of future tense. In Hebrew, English, and Russian 
future tense came to signify habitual action; idiomatic usage emerged. Of 
course, idiomatic usage eventually became divorced from the original, 
etymological meaning.
I don't say that all yiqtols are future tense. No. What I say, 
etymologically yiqtols are future tense. By Tanakhic times, they acquired 
infrequent idiomatic usage, mainly as ci-yiqtol, to signify habitual action. 
Yiqtols also were used with shifted deictic center to refer to what were 
past events at the time of writing, but future from the narrator's shifted 
viewpoint.

> > This derivative, idiomatic usage does not invalidate the notion that 
> > English and Spanish have tenses. ...
> Everyone agrees that English has tenses. But "would" is not the future 
> tense, "will" is.

But "would" derived from "will." Similarly, in Hebrew etymological future 
tense diversified. In Hebrew and English, we must recognize that yiqtol and 
will are generally future tense (not aspects), but allow for relatively rare 
idiomatic usage. We cannot, as Rolf suggest, choose ad hoc meaning for every 
yiqtol encountered.

Vadim Cherny