In Isaiah 28:16, is "founded" in the "past tense"?

[Ruminator]

These are Rashi's comments:

Isaiah 28:16 Therefore, so has the Lord God said: "Behold, I have laid as a foundation a stone in Zion, a fortress stone, a costly cornerstone, a foundation well founded; the believer shall not hasten.

טזלָכֵ֗ן כֹּ֚ה אָמַר֙ אֲדֹנָ֣י יֱהֹוִ֔ה הִנְנִ֛י יִסַּ֥ד בְּצִיּ֖וֹן אָ֑בֶן אֶ֣בֶן בֹּ֜חַן פִּנַּ֚ת יִקְרַת֙ מוּסָ֣ד מוּסָּ֔ד הַמַּֽאֲמִ֖ין לֹ֥א יָחִֽישׁ:

Behold, I have laid a foundation:
This is the past tense. Comp. (Esther 1:8) “For so had the king established (יִסַּד).” And so must it be interpreted: Behold, I am He Who has already laid [a stone in Zion. Already] a decree has been decreed before Me, and I have set up the King Messiah, who shall be in Zion as an אֶבֶן בּוֹחֵן, a fortress stone, an expression of a fortress and strength. Comp. (infra 32:14) “A tower and a fortress (וּבֹחֵן).” Comp. also (supra 23:13) “They erected its towers (בַּחוּנָיו).”

a foundation well founded: (מוּסַד מוּסָּד). The first one is voweled with a pattah because it is in the construct state, a foundation of a foundation, which is a solid foundation.

the believer shall not hasten: Whoever believes this word shall not hasten it. He shall not say, “If it is true, let it come quickly.”

https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cd ... i/true#v16

The Greek OT has it as a future active indicative, ἐμβαλῶ.

The Greek NT uses the present active indicative of a different word, τίθημι (Romans 9:33 and 1 Peter 2:6).

Rashi seems very firm that it is past. Can anyone tell me what the Dead Sea Scrolls have?:

http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/isaiah

http://dssenglishbible.com/isaiah%2028.htm

Also, can you tell me the letters referenced in this footnote?:

[2] The scroll appears to have another verse between 28:17 and 28:18, but not enough letters are present to give a reading.

And if it is past, does that necessarily mean it was in the past? Does Hebrew sometimes write a past for a future?

[ducky]

According to what I see in Ulrich
One scroll writes מיסד (as a participle of Piel)
and one writes יוסד (participle of Qal) (also the Syrian and Aramaic)
(I guess).

this form as the Mt vowels it, is indeed strange, but there are other similar cases like הנני נטיתי In Ezekiel (and also other cases of הנני plus imperfect).

[Ruminator]

Thanks for having a look, David.

Can you please tell me what those participles equate to in English terms? Do they have a "tense"?

And I take it that neither agrees with the MT?

I should have asked about "hurry" as well. Did you happen to notice if the DSS also has "hurry"?

And any more info on the added next verse letters?

Thanks.

[kwrandolph]

According to Eugene Charles Ulrich in the Biblical Qumran Scrolls the Great Isaiah Scroll has מיסד while another fragment has יוסד.

You forget that Biblical Hebrew has no tense. Furthermore, the word in question is a participle/noun, not a verb. It refers to God as the one who founds, i.e. “founder”. The meaning has the idea of laying a foundation.

Karl W. Randolph.

[Jason Hare]

You forget that Biblical Hebrew has no tense.

And from the other thread:

This question is based on the erroneous belief that Biblical Hebrew has tenses. It doesn’t.

This is a contention rather than a fact. Read John Cook's Time and the Biblical Hebrew Verb: The Expression of Tense, Aspect, and Modality in Biblical Hebrew, ed. Cynthia L. Miller-Naudé and Jacobus Naudé, vol. 7, Linguistic Studies in Ancient West Semitic (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012) to get caught up on the issues involved and why "there is no tense in biblical Hebrew" is an outdated statement.

[ducky]

HI Ruminator,

A Participle is a form that has attributes of a noun and also of a verb.
For example, it can get a definite article (like a noun), and it can require a direct object (like a verb).

If I am not mistaken, the word "participle" is called that way because it participates in both systems (the verbal and the noun one) (but correct me if I'm wrong).

I can't tell you to what an English term the participle equates to because I am not an "expert" of English at all, but I'm sure that others can define that (I think there was a talk about it already in this forum).

A participle doesn't have its own tense, but it gets its tense through the context. And so, even though, from a "dry" view it is tenseless, practically it can be any tense, depends on the context.
(It can address to past, future, and so on. Also, it can address a specific time, or a continuous-time, and so on).

Anyway, if you want to understand the participle (or any other form for that matter) just keep reading and you'll get its sense naturally (and it is better to try to define it by dry rules).

***
None of the other sources seems to agree with the MT reading (even though it won't really change the meaning).

the MT voweled יסד as perfect (some see it a little different but never mind about it).
And so, we can read it as Rashi said, that describe the act that God did (I am the one that laid the foundation for the protection of Zion)
The other reading (as a participle) has the sense of saying that God is about to do this (after his rebuke on the people that think they can save Zion, God said that he's laying a strong foundation of protection, to let them know that Zion is to be saved because of Him and not because of their political acts).

I don't know if there is much of a difference here.

Some commentators understand this "foundation stone" as Hezkiyahu the King. And so, the reading of past tense is addressed to him. God said that he already laid a foundation for Zion by choosing Hizkihayu (he is the foundation stone that God already laid).

****
As for "hurry", you mean יחיש and I see it also in the DSS (I just look at Urlich's comparison work).
(By the way, יחיש as hurry is a common commentary, but it is also understood in a different way - Check how the Aramaic translation translates it).

***
About "added next verse letters".
can you write it again?

[kwrandolph]

You forget that Biblical Hebrew has no tense.

And from the other thread:

This question is based on the erroneous belief that Biblical Hebrew has tenses. It doesn’t.

This is a contention rather than a fact. Read John Cook's Time and the Biblical Hebrew Verb: The Expression of Tense, Aspect, and Modality in Biblical Hebrew, ed. Cynthia L. Miller-Naudé and Jacobus Naudé, vol. 7, Linguistic Studies in Ancient West Semitic (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012) to get caught up on the issues involved and why "there is no tense in biblical Hebrew" is an outdated statement.

John Cook is wrong, or else he uses a different definition of “tense” than used by the linguists at SIL.

According to SIL, “tense” is where the form of the verb, its conjugation, indicates its time reference. Where there is no change in the form of the verb in time reference, there is no tense. Biblical Hebrew verbs don’t change in form when dealing with different time references, therefore Biblical Hebrew has no tense.

For example, in English “go” is present tense, “went” is simple past tense, “has gone” perfect tense, etc. There’s variation in form depending on which time reference is intended. On the other hand, in Biblical Hebrew הלכתי can be future, present of past depending on its context with no change in form.

However, by the time of DSS Hebrew (not the Biblical texts), according to Waltke & O’Connor, Hebrew grammar had been changed to a tense based grammar, which Hebrew has maintained to the modern day.

Karl W. Randolph.

[Jason Hare]

However, by the time of DSS Hebrew (not the Biblical texts), according to Waltke & O’Connor, Hebrew grammar had been changed to a tense based grammar, which Hebrew has maintained to the modern day.

This does not represent the current state of research.