SteveMiller wrote:kwrandolph wrote:SteveMiller wrote:Karl,
All the qatal verbs in Prov 31:10-31 can be translated as the English present perfect without a problem.
Present perfect is still a present, referring to action that started in the past and continues into the present.
It is action that occurred in the past. It does not necessarily have to continue into the present.
It has an effect on the present.
i.e. He has spoken.
Having effects that extend into the present is not the question, rather present perfect is continuing action. “I have worked there for five years, then I was transferred to my present position.” is completed action. “He has gone home and arrived five hours ago.” is past action that is over, complete, even though the effect of the action, that he is home, continues to the present. Or it could have continued, “Then he picked up his luggage and caught the next flight to Phoenix.” so that the effect doesn’t last till now.
In English, the perfect tense refers to completed action. Therefore, to translate all these Qatals as perfects doesn’t fit the context of the passage, which is continuing, habitual action.
SteveMiller wrote:kwrandolph wrote:If you insist that the Qatals are present perfect, then all the Yiqtols also are present perfects, for they describe actions with the same time reference. This is from analyzing them in this context.
That's an important point. If what you say here is true, then you are right that there is no time difference between qatal and yiqtol.
Let's look at the verses:
The 1st qatal is in v11:
The heart of her husband has trusted (qatal) in her, and he will lack (yiqtol) no spoil.
The 1st part of the sentence occurred in the past and continues in the present.
The 2nd part of the verse will occur in the future in order to be meaningful because it is a negative statement. Her husband will not lack in the future.
This appears to be clutching at straws to maintain the teaching that Biblical Hebrew conjugations refer to tenses.
The total context of the section is present, habitual action. That includes the Qatals, Yiqtols and Wayyiqtols.
The important point of this verse is that he at the present trusts her, and at the present he lacks for nothing.
SteveMiller wrote:The next verse with both qatal and yiqtol is v14
Why skip v. 13? Because its verb, along with some other verses, is a Wayyiqtol? Did you notice that the Young translation has that as a present tense too, along with verses 15–17? Are all Wayyiqtols in that translation present tense, including the historical narratives? And in verse 20, which has two Qatals, the first is a perfect tense, the second imperfect, it’s not consistent, why?
[snip some redundancy]
SteveMiller wrote:kwrandolph wrote:SteveMiller wrote:Here is Young's Literal Translation,
I’d say this is a mistranslation. I have no idea who Young is, or was, so all I comment on is the translation, and it does violence to the meaning of the text. It doesn’t make sense with the mixing of tenses in English, nor in understanding of the Hebrew. This is a good example of why I don’t consider translations as evidence when discussing Hebrew.
I did not mean to use Young as an authority,
So you agree that this translation is flawed? Then doesn’t that undercut your whole argument?
SteveMiller wrote: but an example to show that all these qatals can be translated in a past time reference and make sense.
Could you show me 1 place in these verses where translating the qatals here as having occurred in the past either does violence to the text or does not make sense?
Well, all of them, because these were translated as perfects which indicate completed action, while the context is of continuing action.
But Young is inconsistent: not all Qatals are translated as perfects.
SteveMiller wrote:kwrandolph wrote:An example of present referent indicative use of Qatal is Genesis 29:5–6, “And he said to them, ‘Do you know Laban Nahor’s son?’ and they said, ‘We know.’ And he said to them, ‘Is it well with him?’ and they said, ‘Well, and behold Rachel his daughter is coming with the sheep.’” Translating the verbs within the quoted conversation as past tense makes no sense.
The 2 qatal know's in v5 need to be translated into English as present, but the meaning is past continuing to the present.
The question isn’t “Did you know him?” nor ”How long have you known him?” rather “Do you now know him?” without any reference to past actions. As for Rachel’s coming, context indicates that she was in the process of coming and had not yet arrived. This is really grasping at straws.
The most common verbal form in Biblical Hebrew for a present action, indicative, conversational sentence is Qatal.
SteveMiller wrote:kwrandolph wrote:I see I don’t have any listing of stand alone Yiqtols in indicative mood with a past reference, I should correct that when I next notice any. Rolf Furuli has a listing of such in his dissertation, but I don’t have access to it.
I looked through my own bheb archives.
I didn’t keep a copy of the B-Hebrew archives, basing my actions on the mistaken expectation that ibiblio kept a complete record. I now know that that trust was misplaced, as messages that I know I posted are no longer in the archives. Even whole threads are now missing. As a result, since I found that the archives are corrupted, I have been erasing even the memory of them from my memory.
Psalm 2:1–2 again should be present tense. That the LXX translated those as aorists indicates that already Hebrew grammar was changing to tense based conjugations. That was centuries after Hebrew ceased to be spoken as a native tongue but had entered the same state as medieval Latin. (Did God have the New Testament written in Greek precisely because the Hebrew of that time was a different language than Biblical Hebrew? That’s getting off topic.) (I look forward to reading again Esther, Ezra and Nehemiah to see if the patterns I noticed for pre-Exile language was still followed at their time?)
A thought just crossed my mind: other than Waw-prefixed follow-up indicatives (Wayyiqtols), do we find any modal past references in the Bible? Such as regret e.g. “I should have done that.”?
Karl W. Randolph.