Biblical Hebrew Forum

[C L <sigebryht AT yahoo.com>]

Robert,

Regarding your questions about aorist verbs in Greek Isaiah 44:24: The aorist forms in Greek are timeless. Often, the aorist is correctly translated as past-tense because it refers aspectually to events that are viewed as complete (or punctiliar, as a snapshot, etc.). The past tense is a tidy way of expressing complete events in English, since the present and future tenses are essentially aspectually incomplete or irrealis.

Therefore, it is completely appropriate for a Greek aorist verb to express present tense for a simple, aspectually unmarked event.

Dan Wallace discusses this at length, with very helpful examples, in Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 554-555. On page 556, he describes the gnomic use of the aorist, which seems to fit the usage you depict in Isaiah 44:24.

The verbs in the Masoretic Text of Isaiah 44:24 are participles: I, Y", am the MAKER (ptcp) of all, STRETCHER [of] the heavens, BEATER (EXTENDER) of the Earth."

Or you could take the participial construction as progressive: "I am the one MAKING/DOING all, STRETCHING the heavens, BEATING OUT the Earth."

I have heard this verse used to defend the notion that Isaiah 44:24 teaches that the cosmos is expanding. One of the problems with that view is that you would also have to explain how the earth is also in the process of being FORGED or BEATEN OUT (like a smith working metal). If the earth is not presently in the process of being FORMED by the Creator, then it seems best to just take this as an adjectival description:

"I am the MAKER of all, the FORGER of the earth, STRETCHER of the heavens."

Sincerely,

Chris Lovelace