Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 17/03/2007 17:28, Vadim Cherny wrote:
> ...
>
> Similarly, weqatal is often employed superficially as future reference. But
> that occurs predominantly in prophetic visions. Prophets relate the visions
> which had already occurred to them, which they had fully seen. The action
> is, indeed, past to them - and they employ the past tense, wecatav means
> "and he wrote." The event is still in the future for listeners, but past,
> occurred for the prophet.
>
>   
I understand what you are saying for WAYYIQTOL and I see some sense in 
it, i.e. if the deictic centre is fixed at the first event in a chain of 
consecutive events, the events after the first are relative future. But 
this doesn't work with WEQATAL in passages like Exodus 25-30, compare 
with Exodus 36-39, where WEQATAL also gives a chain of events which are 
future relative to the first event in the chain - which is given with 
jussive YIQTOL.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
Blog:    http://www.qaya.org/blog/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/