Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

> Indeed we do have this issue. It seems that you, the promoter of the 
> hypothesis, consider this deictic shift to be plausible, but several 
> detached observers including myself have strongly disagreed.

Not really. In a few cases you seem to agree that the shift is plausible. In 
other cases, I retracted my view of the shift, and suggested idiomatic usage 
(ci-yiqtols) or just habitual use of future tense in certain situations 
uncommon in English (like very polite response; Deut1:44). Overall, I accept 
you as an arbiter of plausibility.

> > You seem to accept that yiqtols, where not straight future or plausible 
> > deictic shift, could be approximated with "would." The main part of our 
> > quarrel is whether "would" is future tense. But I don't argue that either 
> > "would" or the corresponding yiqtols in Hebrew are future tense. I say, 
> > they etymologically derive from future tense. ...
>
> For English, this is questionable but irrelevant. For Hebrew, the issue is 
> hard to determine, but it seems that the cognate of the YIQTOL form in 
> other Semitic languages e.g. Arabic, Aramaic, Ugaritic is not so much a 
> future as an imperfect.

Rolf correctly noted that aspects don't explain many occurrences of yiqtol.
I didn't study yiqtols in Ugarit, but Aramaic and Arabic surely have it in 
the same sense as Hebrew, future tense.

> > ... Thus, my point is that originally all yiqtols were future tense; 
> > later, they diversified. ...
>
> But do you have any evidence for this?

If we assume that yiqtol was future tense, then it is understandable how 
yiqtols later diversified into idioms, and suffered deictic shifts. Aspects 
explain the things much worse. Yiqtol in Rolf's 1Kings21:6 cannot be 
imperfect, since Ahab already spoke to Nabot and didn't expect to continue.

> > ... In some cases, yiqtols do not refer to the future. Such cases, 
> > however, are rare, ...
>
> They are not rare, they are the majority of cases in biblical Hebrew.

How much of the Tanakh is dedicated to the future? Much of yiqtols are in 
past narration, deictic shifts.

Vadim Cherny