Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ken Penner" <ken.penner AT acadiau.ca>]

I just wanted to add a note to a statement made below, in case novices might 
think it represents established fact.

The statement in question is:
> You are right that Hebrew does not have tense.

Although the above view is commonly asserted in introductory grammars, the 
ongoing debate is much more complex.

Frank Blake wrote, “It is true that aspect is also indicated by the Semitic 
verbal forms, e.g. the imperfect as a general present or a progressive past 
(imperfect proper) indicates incomplete action or continuance, and the 
perfect as a simple past indicates completed action, but these aspectual 
meanings are always accompanied by and are subordinate to the time point 
meaning or tense” (F. Blake, A Resurvey of Hebrew Tenses [Rome: Pontifical 
Biblical Institute, 1951], 2). As an example of progressive past, Blake cites 
Genesis 2:6 ואד יעלה מן־הארץ “and a mist (flood) used to go up from the 
earth” (9).

See also J. Blau, “Marginalia Semitica 6: The Problem of Tenses in Biblical 
Hebrew,” Israel Oriental Studies 1 (1971): 24–26 and   E. John Revell, “The 
System of the Verb in Standard Biblical Prose,” Hebrew Union College Annual 
60 (1989): 1–37. For relative tense, see Douglas M. Gropp, “The Function of 
the Finite Verb in Classical Biblical Hebrew,” Hebrew Annual Review 13 
(1991): 45–62.

Many who would argue that tense is not the most prominent parameter in the 
Hebrew verb system would still maintain that the wayyiqtol denotes past 
tense.  J. Joosten, “The Indicative System of the Biblical Hebrew Verb and 
its Literary Exploitation,” Narrative Syntax and the Hebrew Bible (Ed. E. Van 
Wolde; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 51–71; “The Long Form of the Prefixed 
Conjugation Referring to the Past in Biblical Hebrew Prose,” Hebrew Studies 
40 (1999): 15–26; “Do the Finite Verbal Forms in Biblical Hebrew Express 
Aspect?” JANES 29 (2002): 49–70.

Finally, one must also consider the development of the language. 
Revell writes, "There seems no reason to suppose that distinction [between 
converted and unconverted forms] was required until near the end of the 
biblical period, when the use of the waw consecutive imperfect began to be 
abandoned. At the same time, the development of the participle into a real 
present tense was beginning, and the perfect and imperfect forms were 
beginning to take on the function of past and future tenses." E. J. Revell, 
“Stress and the Waw ‘Consecutive’ in Biblical Hebrew,” JAOS 104 (1984):444. 
The evidence from Qumran doesn't support this theory of the abandonment of 
the wayiqtol, but I thought this view by a most respected Hebraist should at 
least temper a bare statement that Hebrew does not have tense.

By the way, regarding the sequentiality of wayyiqtol, see Galia Hatav, The 
Semantics of Aspect and Modality: Evidence from English and Biblical Hebrew 
(Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1997), in which she finds 94% of wayyiqtols 
conveying sequentiality (page 29).

Ken M. Penner, Ph.D. (McMaster)
Acadia/Greek&Hebrew
Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic vocabulary memorization software: 
http://purl.org/net/kmpenner/flash