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Preface Introduction ChaptersChapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 AppendicesAppendix I Appendix II Appendix III Appendix IV Appendix V Appendix VI Appendix VII Appendix VIII Appendix IX Appendix X Appendix XI Appendix XII Appendix XIII Appendix XIV Appendix XV Appendix XVI Appendix XVII Appendix XVIII Appendix XIX Appendix XX Appendix XXI IndexesReferences Names Biblical References General Bibliography |
(Reference: p.45) The Use of Hayah in
Genesis, Joshua, Job, two Psalms, and Zechariah. In order to examine the
evidence in situ as it were, a study was made of the context of all
occurrences of the verb "to be" which are to be found in the English
of the Authorized Version of the Old Test- ament in the following
books: Genesis, Joshua, Job, two Psalms, and Zechariah. Genesis was chosen for obvious reasons;
Joshua, because it represented a
historical book of a later period; the book of Job, because of its
rather unique dramatic form; Zechariah, a minor prophet, because it
provided a sample of prophetic literature towards the end of Old
Testament times; and two Psalms because they were representative
of Hebrew poetry. The information thus derived is set forth in a more or less tabular form for each book as a
separate entity, and is then summarized as a whole. What emerges is that a great deal of what
has been commonly assumed regarding
the use and the meanings of the Hebrew verb
the very best authorities,
such as S. R. Driver. This, in
turn, has been repeated by
secondary authorities ("quoters" and "quoters of quotes") with even
less precision! The end result is
that the original authorities have
been credited at times with views on the subject which, though in a
sense they could be considered as logical extensions of their stated
views, are now sufficiently inaccurate that even the originators would
probably not have approved of them. It is hoped that although the
kind of information presented in this Appendix is dry and uninspiring, it
will nevertheless contribute something towards a re-statement of
the whole matter so that those who are concerned with the issue
may be better guided by at least a knowledge of what is clearly not
true. In this study, all occurrences of the verb "to be" in any of its various forms in English (be,
am, are, was, will be, etc.) were examined, whether
represented in the original Hebrew by some form of the verb (and therefore
set in bold type in the Authorized Version), or merely inserted by the
translators to complete the English sent- ence structure (and
therefore set in italics). Thus bold
face type as well as italics are
included in the total count, each sub-total being pg
1 of 14 properly identified as to
its category. The following is what was observed. In the whole of Genesis, the verb "to be"
appears 832 times according to my count. Of these, it is inserted by the
translators, where so required in English though not represented in the original
Hebrew, a total of 626 cases. It is found set in bold type,
indicating the presence of
in 206 cases. From this one may see that the simple
copulative sense of am, is, were,
shall be, etc., is not in the majority of cases represented in the
Hebrew whether the tense is past, present, or future. The verb
contexts (206 out of a
total of 832) where English seems to demand it. This might be
presumptive evidence that the verb is as a rule employed in a Hebrew
sentence only when the meaning is something more than merely
copulative. Most authorities today
admit this but assert at the same time that the general rule applies only
in cases where the tense is presents When the tense is past or
future, it is usually held that the verb is required even where the
usage is copulative. For this
reason, it is agreed that in Gen. 1.2
the verb the tense was past, and
that the correct rendering is therefore the simple "was". The basis of this argument
seems logical enough. Unless the verb is expressed in
Hebrew one cannot distinguish between such statements as "the man
was good", "the man is good", and "the man will be good", since
all three would appear in Hebrew without dis- tinction simply as
"the man - good" (
to the reader as to whether the situation was past, present, or future. But in point of fact,
Hebrew writers do not seem to have felt any such need to be more
explicit since of the total number of cases where the verb is unexpressed,
626 in all, some 184 cases or 30% clearly apply to a past or future situation. Of this number, only 15 are future. Consider, then, these 15
future cases in which the verb is un- expressed. The number is
surprisingly small when compared with the number of references
to past situations, but this is really to be expected. Future events
are much more likely to be looked forward to as involving a change
from present circumstance and since Hebrew writers seem to have
consistently employed the verb
a change of circumstance or
of status is involved, it would be a much less common thing to run
across a future that did NOT require the verb to be expressed. It
is obvious that in such as sentence as, "We are poor but we shall be
rich", a change is indicated which would
require that the verb
normally be expressed: but if the sentence happened to read, "We
are poor and always will be poor", signifying no change in the present
situation, the verb would not normally be expressed. Such a situation as this would then
perhaps best be translated by the corn
pound phrase, "We shall continue to be poor". Life being as it is, most
future circumstances are hopefully viewed as a change from the
present rather than a continuance of it; and indeed most future
references are to a change. This fact is reflected in Genesis where, out of a
total of 88 references to the future in the English of the Authorized
Version, the original expresses the verb (to indicate such a change)
in 73 or three-quarters of them. And
of the other quarter, the
fifteen already referred to, the majority also indicate a change, in
spite of the omission of the verb. This appears to be a contradiction of
the general rule, but an examination of them shows that there is
another qualifying factor in the application of the rule which is important
and logical. These 15 occurrences are as follows: Gen. 3.16; 4. 7;
6.15; 16.12; 17.15; 29.15; 43.23; 41.31; 46.6; and 49.8, 10, 12, 13
(twice) and 20. The passage in Gen. 46.6
is clearly one involving no change - past, present, and future all
being bleakly uniform: "For these two years the failure has been
in the land: and yet there are five years in which there shall be
neither ploughing nor harvest". All the others involve a prospective change in
one form or another in spite of the absence of the verb. But the
reason for the absence of otherwise be expected is
really clear enough. Each situation
is self-explanatory because
of an associated sentence or clause which enables one to see
unequivocally what the writer has in mind. The structure of the closely
linked sentences is such that one cannot read the text at all without being
made positively aware that a change is in view. This awareness
stems from the existence of either contrast or repetition in sentence
structure. Contrast is self-evident
in Gen. 17.15 where Abraham
is told, "Thou shalt not call her name Sarai but Sarah shall
be her name". Repetition is evident in such a passage as Gen. 16.12
where the record reads, "He will become a wild man and his hand shall
be against every man". So unnecessary is the verb in the second
clause that the meaning would (even in English) be perfectly
obvious if it were omitted and read merely as, "He will become a
wild man with his hand against every one". A change of circumstance or
metaphor is involved in most of these 15 passages, but the change is
made abundantly clear by the very struct- ure of the sentence and no
special device is needed to insure the reader's understanding. An excellent example of
the presence and absence of the verb
be found in Gen. 34.15:
"If ye will become as we are....", which in the original is:
and must therefore be
expressed: the second is a static situation (ie., strictly copulative)
and is therefore unexpressed in Hebrew. The reason for labouring the
point is that we so continuously and so unconsciously employ
similar sentence structures with subtle yet important distinctive
meanings that we are not in the habit of analyzing them. Only by insisting on
attention to them can one gain a hearing at all! And as soon as one has convinced the
reader that there is a real distinction, one at
once has to account for apparent exceptions! After all, the employment
or the omission of the verb
a literary device to help
the reader - not an austere law threatening the writer with some
penalty (other than being misunderstood!) if he fails to obey it. If the meaning which is served by the
literary device has been made quite
clear in some other way or by something already said, there is
obviously no need to adopt the device and slavishly insist on
expressing the verb. It is in order to bring out this point that I have
entered into this uninspiring but rather necessary excursus. I am keenly aware that a critic may otherwise
accuse me of being superficial by
the very simple expedient of pointing to exceptions without telling
his readers how they might be more ex- ceptional in appearance
than in fact. So I am anxious to avoid being superficial " even if
my conclusions should ultimately turn out to be quite wrong. The prime object is to elucidate the
issue, an issue that is complex and has
been confused by inadequate appraisal of the evidence. Let me therefore recapitulate
by stating the case thus, as I see the evidence: When there
is no change in view the verb is never required - whether in the
past tense, the present tense, or the future. Where a change is involved, it is
required unless the fact of the altered
circumstance has already been made abund- antly self-evident by some
other means. Thus: no change no verb. Some change - some form of the verb
expressed, or the change is clearly
indicated to the reader by some other means. Where the verb is
expressed in the past or future tense, a change is almost certainly in
view. The absence of the verb may or
may not in itself tell the
whole story but the presence of the verb (unless it has one of its rather
special meanings) always indicates that a change has occurred, or is
occurring, or will occur in the situation in the future. The
verb English by some such word
as became or had become (for the past), becomes or is becoming
(for the present), and will become (for the future). The word "become" is not always
the best English word to use but the meaning of
it seems most closely to represent the original. Such a phrase as, "it came to
be" (which is, after all, merely an alternative of
"it be-came"), is familiar and acceptable; as is, "it shall come
to pass" (which, again, is merely an alternative for "it shall come to
be" or, more simply, "it shall be-come"). I believe that the vast
majority of occurrences of the verb
employed in its more basic
meaning can sensibly be rendered by some equivalent of the English
word "become". In the
future tense this fact can readily be
verified by reference to its 73 occurrences, many of which are listed in
Appendix V. In the present tense, there are but 3 occurrences in
Genesis, according to my count, namely, Gen. 32.10, and 42.31, 36. In
the first, "became" is quite appropriate: "Now I am become two
bands". In the second, the meaning is less precise: the Authorized
Version reads, "We are no spies", a state- ment which may mean,
"We have not come as spies", since - were it merely copulative - it
would (by almost universal agreement) not require the expression of
the verb, least of all since it is in the present tense. The third
case (verse 36) is clear enough since the speaker is complaining of
a change in his fortunes because, suddenly, "all things have come
to be" against him. The omission of the verb would have conveyed the
meaning that things had always been against him. In Genesis, the verb
appears 60 times in the past or future tense in the well known English
rendering, "It came to pass" or "it shall come to pass", both
of which clearly describe a new situation or - to use a modern term, a
"happening". Since both
phrases could be equally well served by
substituting the word "be" for "pass", they would quite appropriately
be read as, "it came to be that...." or "it shall come to be
that....", and the word "be-came" or "be-come" therefore once more
appears as a proper rendering of the verb
As already noted, in 17
passages in the Authorized Version of Genesis the verb is in fact
translated "become" or "became". Besides these, there are some 63 passages in Genesis in which the verb is expressed,
appearing in the Authorized Version in the form "was" or
"were". These occurrences
can all be rendered, and indeed should be
rendered (to be more precise), by some English verbal phrase which is
more than a mere copulative. In many cases it is best rendered
"became" or "had become" and such a rendering does more justice to the
sense of the original. But there are
a
number of interesting and
rather special meanings of the verb
which are curious in that
they are strangely encompassed by some English phrase employing
the word "come". This strikes me as a noteworthy
circumstance. The following passages
include some chosen quite randomly from
Joshua, a book which - as I have stated previously - was also
analyzed for the purposes of this chapter. In Josh. 15,4,7,11; 16.3,8;
and 18.12 (twice), 14, and 19, the allotted territories of
the various tribes are being defined.
The verb
renderings are varied but
all mean "reached to" or "terminated at". The verb could have been
rendered "came to", just as we may say "my property comes to
here", indicating with a marker where the line actually falls. In
Genesis the phrase, "and it came to pass", belongs in this class, of
course. It is found throughout
Genesis 1 in verses 7, 9, 11, 15,
24, and 30, in all of which the meaning is clearly "and it
became so". A beautiful illustration of this is to be found in Psa. 33.9 where
the Hebrew reads:
in the Authorized Version
is rendered, "For He spake and it was done", but actually
should read, ""For He spake and it became", ie.,, "came to be".
The word "done" is quite properly printed in italics in the English translation
since it is not represented in the Hebrew, but it was felt necessary
to complete the sense. Such would be the case if one renders
proves unnecessary when
the sentence is correctly rendered, a circumstance which confirms
the non-copulative meaning of the verb
mistake that the English
translators did, for they rendered it thus:
came". When Lot's wife became
a pillar of salt, we have a third class. A fourth class includes
statements of simple arithmetic, as in Josh. 21.40, "So all the
cities.... of the Levites were (ie., came to).... 12 cities". Thus we have "came
to", ie., reached; "came to pass", ie., transpired;
"be-came", ie., turned into; "came to", ie., added up to; and "came",
ie., arrived (Job 1.13 and 2.1). I am not by these remarks seeking to prove
any point in particular but merely trying to show how the English
word "came" can be played upon so as to mean some surprisingly
different things! And the fact is
that the Hebrew word
extension of the English
word "come", as shown in Appendix VI. In summary, a future situation in which no change is in view, a
future which is merely a
guarantee of the continuance of the present, does not require the
verb English copulative
"to be" in any of its present tense forms require the verb to be expressed
either. Similarly, a past which is viewed as a static situation, a
past which "always was" or "was at the time", a past which is merely
referred to by the writer as a point of ref- erence or as a starting
point for his narrative, a past which though it no longer holds true
did not at the time involve some altered situation, such a past is expressed
without the use of any part of the verb
divinely appointed
situation which (was) good (Gen. 1.10, 21, etc.), one city which (was)
greater than another (Josh. 10.2), a place that (was) wicked, a man
who (was) such-and-such an age,.... all these involve no implied change
in circumstance leading up to the situation described. They are simple
statements of fact at the time. The verb
But if the man became
of such-and-such an age before God dealt with him in some special
way, then the situation is viewed quite differently and the
verb eventuality can be
otherwise indicated to the reader.
Thus, for example, the verb is
required in such a sentence as, "And when Abram became 90 years
old", then the Lord appeared to him and told him that his name was
now to be changed because he was to become a father of many
nations (Gen. 17.1-4). Or, as
another example, "(Jabal)
became the father of such as dwell in tents... and his brother's name (was)
Jubal" (Gen.4.20, 21). The
first part of the sentence involves
a change for he was not a father at all until he reached maturity,
so the verb original is more precisely
rendered into English as "became"; but the second part of the sentence
does not involve any change, being merely an observation of a
fact - and the verb unexpressed in the
original. Undoubtedly, it will be
possible to find real or apparent exceptions here and there, but certainly
the normal practice is not to express the verb
in the past, present, or
future tense. And, equally, the introduction of the verb
to the then situation, or
is taking place, or will take place, or that the verb is being used by
the writer (usually in conjunction with some qualifying preposition
such as in, at, with, within, etc.) to give a special sense. In no such case is it merely
copulative. When expressed, it has such
meanings as "became" (Gen. 19.26); "accom-
panied"
(Josh. 1.5); "added up to (totalled)" (Josh.21.40);
"existed" (Josh. 17.1,2, etc.); "happened" (for a beautiful illustration, see Gen.41.13, "And it
came to pass as he interpreted to us, so it happened":
has both usages);
"went about daily" (ie. , actively, not statically - as in Gen. 2.25);
"belong to" (Josh.14.9; 17.18; and Job 42.12); or even "lay
within" (as in Josh. 19.1). In
Gen. 39.2 three of these meanings appear in one
verse! Thus the text reads, "It
came to pass..... he became a
prosperous man.... he lived daily in his master's house". Other special meanings seem often to
involve the English word
"fall", as in the phrase, "It befell" or "It fell
out that". This, too, is striking, for in French
also there is some evidence of the same kind
of association of ideas where, for example, the word devenir
may mean both "to befall" or "happen" as well as "to become", the
venir in the word, of course, being the English "come". As
already noted, some scholars believe that the Hebrew
As a corollary of the
statement made earlier to the effect that the verb
it is also to be observed
that the word "became" should not be substituted for the
English "was" where the verb
in the original. To make
this substitution conveys a meaning to the text which is either
clearly not the writer's intention; or it simply makes nonsense. Thus where Genesis 1 has the recurrent
phrase, "and it was
good", one cannot sensibly substitute became for was and read it as "and it be
came good". What God creates
or what He instantly commands into
being does not as a process "become" good. It is good. It may, of course, become
something, viewed as an event in such a recurrent
phrase as, "and it was so". But here the verb is always expressed
in the original - and with perfect propriety. But once in being, the
"goodness" of the thing so created is inherent: it is thereafter
copulatively "good". The difference in the original of these two often repeated
phrases in Genesis 1 is brought out by the Authorized Version
practice of using bold face or italics as the original demands. And as I have already observed, for this
very reason this Version has
much to commend it to the English reader over other versions. Only upon one or two occasions does the Authorized Version seem to
make a mistake in its use of type. One such instance is Gen.
40.16 which should have read, "The interpret- ation (was) good",
rather than, "was good", since the original omits the verb. It is reasonable
to conclude, therefore, from these facts, first of all, that the
idea of "becoming" must be expressed - unlike
the mere copula which will
not be: and secondly, that there is no other way in which it can
be expressed in Hebrew. Let us consider briefly
the evidence on these points to be derived from a study of the text
of Joshua, Job, Psa. 22 and 68, and Zechariah. Joshua. A comparison of Joshua with Genesis presents essentially the same kind of picture in
the matter of proportional usage and special- ized meanings. Genesis is, of course, longer than Joshua
(1445 verses as against 658) and
thus the grand totals differ accordingly, but the frequency is of the
same order. In the English of the Authorized Version, the verb "to be" occurs 269 times in all. Of
these, 182 are not represented by any verb in the original. In 87 cases, the verb
these being of course set
in bold type in the English. Of
these, 38 have been or should (in
the interests of consistency) have been rendered, "it came to
pass" or "it shall come to pass" (both of which involve a process of
becoming), and 13 might very properly have been rendered "come to
be", "become", "became", "had become", or "will become"
[namely, Josh. 3.4 (come to be); 4.6,7; 9.5 (plu- perfect); 14.4,9 (future);
15.1; 17.8 (future); 20.3; 23.13; 23.27 (twice); and 24.32]. The
balance have specialized meanings, such as "being with"
in the sense of accompanying (Josh. 1.17; 3.7; etc.), or "added up to"
(as in Josh. 21.40), or "were situated in" (as in Josh. 8.22; 18.14;
19.1,14; etc.), or "reached from" (as in Josh. 13.16) or "reached
to" (Josh. 13.23). None of these are copulative usages. Nor are the several remaining examples
copulative, for in these a future event is
described which differs from the then present circumstance; as for
example in Josh. 20.6: "until he stand before the congregation for
judgment, and until the death of the high priest that shall be in those
days". To my knowledge, only
one possible exception is observable in
which the verb of having been used
unnecessarily in a sense, and this is Josh. 10.14 which reads, "And
there was no day like that, before it or after it". Perhaps even this is not
really exceptional since, in a sense„ the use is existential. Certainly, whatever else
may be said for the text of Joshua, it does not lend support to
the idea that the verb
copulative sense of
"to be". Job. The Book of Job is slightly
different in an interesting way that I think must be related to
the dramatic form of the narrative.
It is
interesting because the historic present is more
frequently used and because in certain circumstances when the verb
have been employed, it has actually been omitted.
The object, by shortening the sentence, is perhaps to heighten
the sense of urgency. In the Book of Job according to the Authorized
Version, a total of 270 occurrences of some part of the verb "to
be" will be found, with only 26 (or 10% of them) set in bold type
indicating the verb the original.
The omissions which therefore number 244 are re- presented in the English text by such words as are,
was, will be, etc. The
overwhelming majority of these are simply copulative. There are, as already stated, a few special cases
where the omission is probably for dramatic effect. These are to be found occurring in such verbal phrases as "(were)
eating" (Job 1.13, 18), "(was) yet speaking (Job 1.16, 17, 18). This is a not uncommon device in Hebrew literature, the participle of the verb
(here "eating" and "speaking") being used sometimes with
it, instead of the simple imperfect normal to an
English sentence. It is also apparent that the writer has avoided to
a large extent the use of the past tense, for of all the italicized
verbal forms of "to be" which occur in the Authorized Version text of Job,
only 8% are past compared with 27% in the text of Genesis. It seems as though, in the mind of the translators at least if not in the
mind of the original writer, the use of the "historic
present" was felt to be more approp- riate to the narrative form employed. The very first verse is a good illustration of
three different mean- ings attached to the sense of "being".
The text reads, "There was a man.... whose name (was) Job.... and it
happens that that man was perfect...." The first "was"
clearly means "lived", the verb being used in its existential sense; the second is
the simple copulative and is therefore omitted in Hebrew; and the third
is used in the historic sense, "and it came to
pass...." Here, then, we find a strictly copulative sentence set forth in a way
which by the omission of the verb
tinct from that of the two other occurrences of
the verb in the same passage. The existential use of
Job 16.12; "I lived at ease", which has been
rendered in the Author- * For example, see: Gen.4.17; 37.2; Jud.16.21;
I Sam. 2.11; and many others. And see further, Appendix II.
ized Version as, "I
was at ease". The sense of "becoming" is to be observed in such a passage as Job 17.6 which in the Scofield edition of the Authorized Version
reads: "He hath made me also a by-word of the people; and I was (
It seems to me that the
speaker is trying to indicate that a drastic change in his situation
has now taken place with respect to his previous status in the community.
And therefore, in the interest of greater precision, I suggest that
the verb should be rendered "I am become as one who.....",
though admittedly by making this change I am robbing my opponents of an
example (if they should choose to use it) of a supposed copulative
occurrence of the verb
since the writer of Job
has not once in the other 240 or so instances of a purely copulative
situation employed any part of the verb
we have good reason to suppose
that he employed it here because he intended the meaning to be
something other than a mere copula. The dramatic style of the
writer is revealed by the not infrequent omission of the verb
(
Job 29.5 where the verb is
omitted, though in the English it is followed by
"with": "When the Almighty (was) yet with me". This may be contrasted with the
more normal (ie. , prosaic) construction indicated for the same
phrase in Josh. 1.5, 17 (twice); 2.19; 3.7 (twice); 6.27; and 7.12.
Here, too, we seem to have the shortened sentence structure. Besides Job 17.6 already referred
to, there are a number of other occurrences where
the text might better have been rendered using the verbal form
"became", "become", etc., though the Author- ized Version has not done
so. In all of these, needless to say, the verb
the following, all of
which indicate a real change in the situation: 10.19: "I should have become as though I
had not been" (ie., never existed). 11.17: "Thou shalt become as the
morning". 12.4: "I am become as one mocked by his
neighbour". 16.8: "Wrinkles - which become a
witness against me". 24.14: "and in the night becomes a thief. 30.9: "And now I have become their song,
yea, I have be- come their by-word". 30.29: "I have become a brother to
jackals". Essentially the same
picture emerges from Job as from Joshua
and Genesis in the matter
of grammar and syntax except for the already noted much less frequent use of the
past tense of the verb
the verb appears 130 times
in the past tense, in Job only 17 times: in Genesis all occurrences of
corn pared with only 26 in
Job. Thus the style of Job would certainly seem to have been
deliberately compressed - almost staccato at times. Psalms. Two Psalms were chosen, 22 and
68, solely on account of their convenient length, and for
statistical analysis they have been treated as one. Perhaps in the very
nature of the case, the language of the Psalms seems to be written
very much in the present tense and references to the past are
comparatively few. In fact, the Hebrew verb is not used once in a
past or a future reference at all in either of these Psalms. In the English there are 27
occurrences where some part of the verb
"to be" is supplied by the translators, of which 22 are in the present
tense. Since these are undoubtedly correctly supplied as to tense, and
since the data for all the Psalms combined indicates the same general
pattern (31 in italics in past tense, 524 in present tense, and 34 in
future tense), there is no doubt that this is a feature of Hebrew
psalmody. Which is to say, that the
verb
is not felt to be necessary
in the vast majority of cases, actually appearing only as one simple
case in these two Psalms, and in this one instance (Psa. 22.19)
with what is probably the existential mean- ing. Since there are in all some 31 references
to the past and 34 to the future which have
not demanded the introduction of the verb
the general rule that
copula, regardless of the
tense. Zechariah. In Zechariah, there is a significant
difference from the Psalms, for the whole bent of the
text is towards the future and out of a total of 42 occurrences of the
verb
future, 4 are references to
the past and only 1 is a reference to the present. It seems likely that this general pattern
is true of most of the prophetic
books or passages of Scripture, in view of the fact that the words look forward
to a situation yet to come which will be different from things as
they now are. This kind of change in
Hebrew literature, where
the verb "to be" is involved, appears regularly to require the
use of the verb
number of cases the
English has rendered the sentence, "and it shall come to pass...." As
already indicated, this could quite as proper- ly be written, "It
shall come to be....", ie., "It shall be-come.. ."* The Table on page 146 is
included merely to summarize the data reported upon in this
Section. It should be underscored that these numbers represent my own
counting, a count usually undertaken during evenings after a
full day's work and therefore not pretending to be infallible though certainly
not grossly in error. Where the totals do not tally (as in
the case of Job's Italics total, for example), the reason is that there
were a few occurrences of the verb "to be" in English which could not
be classified among the others, being part of some verbal clause such
as "were eating", etc. The percentage figures given represent
the proportion of the appropriate total which each category of entries
has within each book. The figures
for Psalm 22 and 68 have been
combined. Percentages are calculated to the nearest whole percent. In Genesis, Joshua, and Zechariah, the verb is omitted from twice to three times as
frequently as it is employed (206/626: 87/182: and 42/74). In Job the verb is
omitted approximately ten times as often as it is employed, and in
the Psalms, twenty-seven times as often. It is clear that the
copulative use in its simple form is exceedingly rare compared with what
the English sentence demands. * It is hard to say to what extent the
Authorized Ver- ion has been responsible
for determining the sense which we continue to attach to some
words, but it may be worth noting that according to the
Oxford English Dictionary (Vol. 1, p. 715 b, published in 12
volumes by the Clarendon Press, 1933) under the article on
the word BE: "(This verb) was in Old English a distinct
verb.... meaning 'become', 'come to be', and thus serving
as a future tense to am and was, By the beginning of the
13th c. the Infinitive and Partic- iple, Imperative and
Present Subjunctive of am and was, became successively
obsolete, the corresponding parts of BE taking their place so that
the whole verb am and was and be is now commonly called
from its infinitive the verb 'to be'." In other words, even the
verb "to be" once really meant "to become".
Copyright © 1988 Evelyn White. All rights reserved
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has been
somewhat imprecise - even when discussed by
in the original,
) with no
further guidance
where it would
as appropriate to the requirement of the writer's meaning may
. The
first verb proposes a change
when
which
as "and it was".
ie.,
"For He spoke, and it be-
to be expressed: nor does the
simple
.....
);
"reached to" or "from" (Josh.18.12
is related to a more primitive root meaning "to fall".
appears in the Hebrew,
) as one before whom men spit".
.
, etc.)
where normally one would expect it.
, and in a very large
