|
|
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 |
THE PLUPERFECT IN HEBREW. To my knowledge, there is no work in the English language dealing specifically with the
Hebrew verb comparable to that published in 1892 by S. R. Driver
entitled, A Treatise on the Hebrew Tenses. The expanded title as it
appears on the first page is, "A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in
Hebrew and some Other Syntactical Quest- ions". As might be
expected from a man with Driver's scholarship, the treatment of tenses is
thorough and precise, and massively illustrated with
innumerable examples taken from Scripture. In the present Chapter,
our primary concern is with the use of the pluperfect in Hebrew
and we shall not here enter into detailed consideration of the other
tenses, of such questions as the "waw consecutive", the
mode of expressing continuing present action, or action in the future. Nor will the philosophy of the Hebrew
time- sense be examined in any
depth, remarkable as it is, in spite of the fact that much of Driver's
treatise deals with this aspect of the subject. All these are of
importance for the student of Hebrew, of course, but they are
explored here only to the extent that they con- tribute to an
understanding of the Hebrew use of the pluperfect. pg
1 of 14 Suffice it to say that the formal paradigm of the Hebrew verb presents us with a perfect
tense for describing completed action, and an imperfect tense for
describing incomplete action: and these two tenses are by various
means made to serve all the other tenses, pluperfect, present, and
future. For example, the verb qatal ( is killing": and it
appears in an appropriate form "he is killed". The verb also has the passive
form, "he is being killed" and "he was killed": and of
course there are the usual participles, imperatives, infinitives, etc., both
active and passive. Unlike English,
the verb has a specific form
for the reflexive (which would mean "to kill oneself, ie. , to commit
suicide), as well as an intensive form "to kill with violence"
(ie. , to slaughter), and a causative form, "to have someone put to
death". Thus in the matter of
conjugations the Hebrew verb is well enough
supplied but in the matter of tense, that is to say of time, Of it
is limited to two forms only. Clearly a single tense
form has therefore to serve a much wider range of meanings than in
English. Shades of difference about the timing in the past or the
future do not seem to have been considered sufficiently important to
justify special forms for either a pluperfect or a future tense. With
respect to the latter, it has been suggested that, like other
non-Indo-Europeans, they held the view that to speak of something which is to
occur in the future is unrealistic since one cannot really be sure
about it. Thus no specific verbal
form was ever "invented"
to cover it. It can be a promise or an intention, but as far as man is concerned
it hardly constitutes a fact! With God, of course, it is quite different.
When He says. He will do something in the future, it IS a
fact, and the certainty that it will be done led the Hebrew writer to use a
perfect tense as if it were already a fait accomplis. Most divinely originated promises are
treated thus, and the verb is
written in a form which is referred to by gram- marians as the
"prophetic perfect". Brief mention must be made
of one odd feature of Hebrew syntax that has puzzled
Indo-European readers since it seems an irrational procedure. It is this. When a sentence or a clause begins with the conjunction
"and" (waw), the verb which immediately follows it and to which it is joined
as a prefix, has its tense converted!
A perfect is treated as an
imperfect and an imperfect as a perfect. Thus the form for the
English, "he is killed", if it happens to have the waw prefixed to
it, is converted as though it were no longer a perfect and completed
action but an imperfect and uncompleted action. "He killed"
becomes "and he is killing" or "and he kills" or even
"and
he will kill": ie., any one of the uncompleted modes of expression. This is sometimes referred
to by Hebrew scholars as the waw- conversive" (ie. ,
waw which converts) and sometimes as the waw - consecutive" (ie.,
verb following or consequent to what precedes). We shall not have occasion
to revert to this very much in the present study except in quoting
Driver to show what it can NOT be made to mean. Now evidently Hebrew writers
did feel it desirable to have some means of distinguishing
between the implications of a perfect and a pluperfect tense. If there is only one verbal form to cover
both ideas, one necessarily has
to adopt some "device" other than changing the verbal form. To convey the idea of a pluperfect as
distinct from a perfect, Hebrew
writers adopted the practice of deliberately changing the normal word
order of the sentence. It is this
with which we are primarily
concerned in the present chapter. The normal English sentence, in its simplest form, places the subject first, the verb
next, and the object after the verb. In Latin the verb is placed at or
near the end of the sentence, after both subject and object. In Hebrew the normal order is verb first,
subject next, and object after
that. Thus the order is: In English: "The king
appointed his ministers...." In Latin: "The king
his ministers did appoint...." In Hebrew: "He
appointed, did the king, his ministers..." English, of course, allows changes or departures from the normal in the interests of
emphasis, contrast, euphemy, and by poetic licence. Hebrew is remarkably consistent and
departs from the norm with rather less
frequency than does the English, though it makes similar allowances
in poetry and adopts rather similar rules for emphasis or
contrast. In the latter case, it is
customary to place the subject ahead of
the verb in order to emphasize a change. "The king planned
this but God determined otherwise" would be a situation in which the
Hebrew writer would place the second subject, "God", ahead of
its verb, the conjunction being read more approp- riately as a disjunction
than a conjunction in such a case. However even in this kind of situation
the Hebrew would not always change the word order. It really depends upon how great the contrast is felt to be and whether it is
desired to draw special attention to it or not. The reason for emphasizing
this point is that the change of word order in the sentence, ie., the
placing of the subject ahead of the verb in- stead of the reverse, is a
device which happens also to serve the purpose of converting a
perfect into a pluperfect. Thus when the word order IS changed one has to determine for which cause this has been done, although in
some cases it may have been done for both reasons. The use of a pluperfect in a narrative has a special importance because it frequently
indicates a hiatus. When the second sentence is not immediately
connected with the one which precedes it, when the narrator is reverting
to an event or a circumstance that in point of time is to be placed ahead
of and distinct from the events recorded in the subsequent
narrative, then it is customary to place the subject ahead of the verb and it
is proper to render the verb as a pluperfect. It is not the verb form
which is changed but the word order; and since there is disconnection or
discontinuity intended by this device, it is usual to preface the
sentence with waw-disjunctive rather than waw- conjunctive, which in an
English translation would mean replacing the "and" with
"but" or "however" or "meanwhile". For example, in such a sentence as,
"The king came to the valley but the enemy had fled", the Hebrew
would place the subject "enemy" ahead of the verb "fled",
thus converting it to a pluperfect "had fled". In a sentence of this kind, we have a situation in which both contrast and discontinuity appear
in a single context. There is
contrast because, while the king
planned one course of action confidently looking for an engagement,
the enemy had planned otherwise and had already left in order to
avoid one! The situation is such
that the departure of the enemy was
already completed before the king arrived on the scene – and
therefore the context calls for a pluperfect in the translation. The conjunction (waw) would properly
be rendered a disjunctive
"but" or "however" or some such word, and whether we look upon the inverted order as signifying contrast or discontinuity matters little, for both
views are equally correct. The context will usually settle the matter in
any case. In such a sentence as
"The king planned this but the
people planned otherwise", the inverted order would be used to
signify contrast primarily, but even here a pluperfect might not be
inappropriate: "but the people had planned otherwise". Thus, in
the present issue, the word order of Gen. 1.2 virtually demands a
pluperfect if it is once allowed that the verb cannot be taken as a
simple copula. "But the earth had become...." is almost certainly the more
appropriate rendering. Now Driver writes at some
length on this point. In discussing the usual idiom chosen by
Hebrew writers for the purpose of express- ing a pluperfect, he says:
"Their custom, when they wish to do this is to interpose the subject
between the conjunction and the verb He then draws attention to Pusey's comments on the same subject and advises the reader to
refer to the well-known Lectures on Daniel where Pusey write sat some
length on the inverted word order which he says, "expresses
a past time, anterior to what follows but in no way connected in
time with what precedes". Driver then gives the
following series of illustrations from the Old Testament and comments
upon each as indicated. I have not quoted his comments
directly because his style is such as to demand that one has read the text
which preceded. I have merely summar- ized his words. But I have done so without in any way
changing his intended meaning. Gen. 24.62: "Now,
Isaac had come from the way of the well La- hairoi; for he dwelt in
the south country. And Isaac went
out to meditate in the field at
the eventide: and he lifted up his eyes and saw, and, behold, the camels
were coming. And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw
Isaac, she lighted off the camel.....". The opening verb is to be
read as a pluperfect, for here the writer wishes to combine two
streams in his narrative; ie., he has (i) brought Rebekah to the termination
of her journey, but (ii) he also desires to account for Isaac's presence at the same spot. In order to prepare the way for their meeting,
he is obliged to go back and to detail what had taken place prior to
the stage at which his narrative has arrived: he therefore starts afresh
with the words ject (Isaac) + the verb,
in this order). The whole of verse 62 f. bears reference to Isaac
and the two streams which are terminated respectively by in verse 64 which says, "And she lifted up, did Rebekah, her eyes" ( So also in Gen. 31.19:
( shear his sheep, when Rachel stole the images that were her father's". That is to say, the
possibility of Rachel stealing the images was a direct consequence of the
fact that Laban had gone away. To a reader who is unfamiliar
with Hebrew, these illustrations may be difficult to follow
precisely, but Driver chose these examples, among others, simply
because they do exactly illustrate the point he is making: namely, that
the first clause is so constructed in the Hebrew as to convey a
pluperfect sense whereas the second clause is not, and this construction
is dependent entirely upon the interposition of the subject between the
conjunction and the verb. Driver then clarifies the issue somewhat by providing the reader with a number of biblical
illustrations for which he gives the reference and a key word or two. I
have set forth these references much more fully because probably not
too many readers will take the time actually to look them up - and the force
of his observations will thus largely
be lost. I have added a note, where appropriate,
relative to the Revised Standard Version
renderings. Here is his list. Gen.20.4: But Abimelech had not (actually) come near her.. ..." The situation here is that
Abraham, for fear of being put to death by Abimelech whom he
suspected would want to take his beautiful wife Sarah, had posed as her
brother instead of her husband. According- ly, Abimelech had treated
the supposed brother with extreme favour, and then taken Sarah off
to his palace.... But, as it happens, he had a dream that came to warn
him against his intended action and this dream occurred
providentially before the King "had come near her". Hence the writer wishes
the reader to know, since the narrative is written in retrospect,
that Abimelech meanwhile had not yet actually abused Sarah - and so, as
things turned out, had done her no harm. It will be noted that both
the Authorized Version and the Revised Standard Version have
translated the Hebrew as a pluperfect. I Sam. 14.27: "Jonathan had not heard" that his father had given the order forbidding the
eating of a certain honeycomb. So Jonathan disobeyed an order of whose
existence he was ignorant. It will be noted in this instance
that the Authorized Version does not observe the tense indicated by the
Hebrew word order, whereas the Revised Standard Version has done
so. It should be underscored that in all these, as well as in the
following cases, the noun precedes the verb. Num. 13.22: "Now
Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt". The very
sense of the narrative here would, one might suppose, guide the
translators - even if the Hebrew text did not provide the clue. Nevertheless, for some reason neither
the Authorized Version nor the
Revised Standard Version translated this passage correctly. This
fact should be sufficient indication, as we shall have reason to underscore
later, that it is not enough in such matters to appeal to two
such standard translations and merely depend upon how they dealt
with the matter. Driver is right: this is quite clear from the very nature
of the context. The Revised
Standard Version scholars were not
sufficiently careful - and the Authorized Version scholars may not
even have been aware of the rule.
Both mistranslated the text. Josh. 6.22: "But
Joshua had said unto the two men...." Josh. 18.1: ".... and
the land had (already) been subdued before them". In Josh. 6.22
the Authorized Version observed the rule, the Revised Standard Version
did not. In Josh. 18.1 neither the Auth- orized Version nor the
Revised Standard Version observed it. I Sam. 9.15: "Now,
the evening before Samuel came, the Lord had told Samuel...." The Authorized Version and the Revised
I Sam. 25.21: "Now
David had said..." So
the Authorized Version and the Revised
Standard Version. I Sam. 28.3: "Saul had
put away all that had familiar spirits". Both the Revised Standard
Version and the Authorized Version obser- ved the pluperfect here. II Sam. 18.18: "Now
Absalom, in his lifetime, had taken and reared up a pillar unto himself...." Both versions agree. I Ki. 14.5: "Now the
Lord had said unto Abijah...."
Here neither the Authorized
Version nor the Revised Standard Version (nor the Berkeley translation, I
notice) have observed the correct sense. I Ki.22.31: "But the king of Syria had commanded his
thirty cap- tains....". The Revised Standard Version agrees, but
not the Authorized Version. II Ki. 7.17;
"Meanwhile the king had appointed the lord, on whose hand he leaned, to have
charge of the gate...." This circumstance was fatal to the king,
hence it is a piece of information cast in retro- spect by way of preparing
the reader for what followed. The Revised Standard Version noted the
word order, but the Authorized Version did not. II Ki. 9.16: "Meanwhile,
Ahaziah, King of Judah, had come down to see Joram...." Again, the Revised Standard Version
agrees with, but the Authorized
Version has not observed, the rule. It will be noted that in
all these instances the sentence is best introduced by the disjunctive
particle in order to underscore the fact that there is no immediate
connection with what precedes. Driver sometimes has
"and" where I have substituted "but" or "now"
or "meanwhile". The
point needs no defending for the Hebrew waw ( which stands at the
beginning of each of these references has an almost unlimited number of
meanings,* so that one may adopt the meaning most suitable to the sense
without doing any injustice to the Hebrew original. After concluding this list
of illustrations, Driver adds that in each of these passages, by
separating the verb from the conjunction and in- terposing the subject
between the two, "the writer cuts the connex- ion with the immediately
preceding narrative, and so suggests a plu- |
) "to
kill" appear sin an appropriate form corresponding to "he
(Now + the
sub-
(verse
61)and 
(verse 62) thus converge
).
) "Now Laban had gone away to
)