Hebrew Tenses According To Thomas Newberry

[Moses Gummadi]

In the "Englishman's Bible" (Newberry Study Bible, link here), Thomas Newberry gives the following classification of the Hebrew "tenses". I am used to understand the verbs as Perfect (Qatal), Imperfect (Yiktol), Wayyiqtol and Weqatal, besides infinitives, imperatives, etc.

I have attached 3 pages of his verbal classification below. I think he calls Qatal as "short tense", and Yiqtol as "long tense". Wonder what he means by intermediate tense. He divides Qatal and Yiqtol into past, present future tense with examples. Can some one (esp. Jason Hare) please give their opinion on Mr.Newberry's system? Also perhaps suggest a classification table (if there is one) within the standard grammar books (I haven't found one Weingreen, Gesenius). Thank you.

[kwrandolph]

Thomas Newberry sounds confused. “Tense” refers to a time stamp, that one form always refers to the past, another for present and yet another for future. Yet he admits that both of what he calls “tenses” can refer to all three time references. With that being the case, those are not tenses.

He also brings up aspect and modality, are one of those accurate?

Karl W. Randolph.

[talmid56]

I have never heard of his classification of Hebrew "tenses". I've been reading Benjamin Noonan's Advances in the Study of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, and none of the current BH scholars and linguists he discusses use such classifications. Perhaps he was influenced by Driver, but he didn't use the same categories either.

[Jason Hare]

I don’t like that the author wrote וְיַעֲשֶׂה (vəyaʿăśeh) instead of either וַיַּעֲשֶׂה (vayyaʿăśeh) or (the more common) וַיַּ֫עַשׂ (vayyáʿaś) for “and he did” (middle of page vii). In past tense contexts, the former is vav + imperfect (translated as “and he would do” or “and he used to do”) or veyiqtol; the latter is vayyiqtol. These are hardly the same thing.

[Moses Gummadi]

Thanks Karl, Dewayne and Jason.