Can we translate Gen37:15:
A man asked him, asking, "What dost thou will?"
Not into modern English, you can't. This should be: A man asked him,
"What do you want?"
Well, according to BDB there seems to be just one case in the Hebrew
Bible of BQ$ Piel with just an object meaning "desire, demand", 1
Chronicles 21:3. So that meaning cannot be ruled out. But considering
the context, a man finding Joseph wandering around looking for something
rather than asking for anything, it seems far more probable that the
sense here is the commonest one of BQ$ Piel, namely: ..."What are you
looking for?"
And in either case the sense is entirely present, not future at all.
--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/