Biblical Hebrew Forum

[C L <sigebryht AT yahoo.com>]

Robert,

Also regarding Isaiah 44:24...

Normally, I would say that the presence of the pronoun plus the participle denotes something like a present progressive. One of the difficulties in this verse is that we should treat the same verb forms in the same way in a single clause like this.

This creates difficulties. We would end up with

"Thus says the LORD, the one (1) REDEEMING you, and the one (2) FORMING you from the womb, "I, the LORD, am (3) MAKING all things, (4) STRETCHING out the heavens by Myself And (5) SPREADING out the earth all alone:" (Modified from NASB)

The Old Greek/Septuagint compromises by rendering the first three verbs as participles and last two verbs as finite aorists:

οὕτως λέγει κύριος ὁ 1 λυτρούμενός σε καὶ ὁ 2 πλάσσων σε ἐκ κοιλίας ἐγὼ κύριος ὁ 3 συντελῶν πάντα 4 ἐξέτεινα τὸν οὐρανὸν μόνος καὶ 5 ἐστερέωσα τὴν γῆν τίς ἕτερος

NASB makes a similar choice:

"Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer (noun [originally a participial form in English]), and the one who formed (finite past-tense, similar to aorist as simple past) you from the womb, "I, the LORD, am the maker (noun [originally a participial form in English]) of all things, Stretching (participle, possibly to denote present progressive) out the heavens by Myself And spreading (participle, possibly to denote present progressive) out the earth all alone,"

Here is the Hebrew text (Note that Kethib is in parenthesis, Qere in brackets):
 

  44:24 כֹּֽה־אָמַ֤ר יְהוָה֙ גֹּאֲלֶ֔ךָ וְיֹצֶרְךָ֖ מִבָּ֑טֶן אָנֹכִ֤י יְהוָה֙ עֹ֣שֶׂה כֹּ֔ל נֹטֶ֤ה שָׁמַיִ֙ם֙ לְבַדִּ֔י רֹקַ֥ע הָאָ֖רֶץ )מִי) (אִתִּי] (מֵאִתִּֽי[׃

 

Even if we remove the vocalization to render this a purely consonantal text, the presence of אנוכי (corresponding to the pronoun "I") makes it clear that these verbs are best read as participles rather than third-person masculine singular forms. This is further borne out by the lack of a relative אשׁר clause. This may be strictly required, but I believe that if these verbs were intended to be third masculine singular instead of participial, we might expect the verse to begin more like this:

כה אמר יי אשׁר גאלך

Of course, Hebrew doesn't always do what we expect, and relative clauses abound in Biblical Hebrew without an אשׁר in sight. Nevertheless, the absence of a relative construction supports seeing these verbs as participles.

I think that the Old Greek/Septuagint translators did a good job of trying to render the Hebrew in a way that made sense to their readers. This was almost certainly their primary goal, which meant that they could not always follow the Hebrew grammar in their translation, even if they wanted to do do. Therefore, we should not be quick to read too much into why they might have chosen one form over another.

It would be interesting to see what Aquila and Symmachus do with this verse.

Sincerely,

Chris Lovelace

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From: C L <sigebryht AT yahoo.com>
To: "b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2013 10:45 AM
Subject: Aorist verbs in Septuagint Isaiah

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