Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

> > Can we translate Gen37:15:
> >  A man asked him, asking, "What dost thou will?"
>
> Not into modern English, you can't. This should be: A man asked him, "What 
> do you want?"

That blurs the future tense inherent in "will."

> Well, according to BDB there seems to be just one case in the Hebrew Bible 
> of BQ$ Piel with just an object meaning "desire, demand", 1 Chronicles 
> 21:3.

Also related, Zeph2:3, PS122:9, 1Sam24:10, Gen43:30, Ex4:24. That is 
according to Steinberg.

> So that meaning cannot be ruled out. But considering the context, a man 
> finding Joseph wandering around looking for something rather than asking 
> for anything, it seems far more probable that the sense here is the 
> commonest one of BQ$ Piel, namely: ..."What are you looking for?"

"What do you want?" sounds no less plausible.

> And in either case the sense is entirely present, not future at all.

"What dost thou wilt?" is the closest to the future tense I could find in 
English. Russian, as I said, allows straight future tense here, and "will" 
is also future-oriented.

Vadim Cherny