Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>]

TedBro AT aol.com wrote:
>  
> Hi, All:
>  
> This is my first time posting... so please excuse me, if my comments go  
> astray.
>  
> I gather that the issue under discussion is the "vav conversive."  KJV  and 
> many other translations "convert" the Hebrew imperfect verb form (VAYIQRA)  to 
> the English past tense; "And He called". The selected example, Genesis 1:5 is  
> especially interesting because the verbal root QRA appears twice in the  
> verse, once in the imperfect, (VAYIQRA) with reference to God calling the  light 
> Day, and the second time in the perfect (QRA) where God calls the  darkness 
> Night. 
>  
> Logic dictates that in the narrative sequence these two actions both  take 
> place in the past... so why are different verbal form used? 
>  
> Rendering the imperfect as future and the perfect as past clearly does not  
> work here. AND... The idea that the vav converts the imperfect to the perfect,  
> remains hard to swallow, despite the fact that it eliminates the problem and  
> makes for reasonable translation.
>  
> The NWT practice, as I understand it, is based on an attempt to convey  
> incomplete / ongoing action with the imperfect, past or future. Hence "God began  
> to call" whereas the perfect is translated as a complete past "and God called  
> the darkness Night." 
>  
> Is any one familiar with other translations that attempt to distinguish the  
> imperfect from the perfect? Or others simply acquiesce to the "conversive"  
> (regardless of how they rename it) despite its structural awkwardness?
>   
HH: I am not familiar with the latest theory, but my understanding is 
that current ideas involve the possibility that there were originally 
two prefix verb conjugations, a long and a short form. The "conversive 
waw" would represent a phonological difference dependent on use of the 
original short form. There are occasional long form "waw conversives" 
and these are seen to be "secondary, analogical developments" by some 
scholars (Waltke-O'Connor, Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 33.1-2). So it is not 
exactly the waw changing the meaning of the verb, but two different 
verbs with different meanings, one of which is represented in the waw 
conversive.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard