B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

Is יכזב in the imperfect tense?

And would it better be translated "does lie," or "will lie"?

Yes, it is imperfect.
Imperfect can be either future or present, so either "he lies" or "he will lie".

You can't really tell how it is best translated without the context.

MGWB wrote:Is יכזב in the imperfect tense?

No, there are no tenses in Biblical Hebrew. The language doesn’t conjugate for time.

The conjugations refer to other concepts, but not for time, neither in tense nor aspect.

MGWB wrote:And would it better be translated "does lie," or "will lie"?

It can also be translated as “has lied”.

Karl W. Randolph.

This is (again) a note of caution that Karl's views regarding Hebrew "conjugations" differ from those commonly held by researchers of the Hebrew verbal system. (E.g., most would say that the wayyiqtol form does indicate past time as a rule.) That said, I agree with Karl on this point at least: the yiqtol form (i.e., the form that יכזב is), conventionally called "imperfect," is not a tense. I find myself in the camp of those who agree with Jan Joosten that yiqtol is modal. (English modals are forms using "could" "would" "might" "will" "should" and the like.) So I disagree that יכזב should ever be translated "has lied". Perhaps in a past context it could be "would lie" or "used to lie," but not a real statement of fact "has lied" or "did lie".