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."
>
> There is no future tense inherent in "will", as an independent verb. It is 
> simply a rare synonym of "want" or "decide", which would never be used in 
> such a context.

It is a rare synonym now. In ME, "will" began to form future tense and 
retained the sense of "want."

> but "What dost thou will?" would be grammatical pre-modern English, or 
> else "What wilt thou?". But in this case "will" or "wilt" is acting as an 
> independent verb, and so is not a future tense or in any way 
> "future-oriented".

I recall that "will" acquired its future tense auxiliary role in ME. Thus, 
at some point it shared functions of independent verb abd tense auxiliary. 
At that time, "What wilt thou?" is a close analogy to idiomaically employed 
future tense in Hebrew.

Vadim Cherny