Are there tenses in the Hebrew language?

[Vic]

This is a split from another thread, in which Jazzy challenged Rose's hebrew and then stated that there are no tenses in Hebrew.

I will be posting in some of the relevant posts from that dialogue and we can go from there.

[Vic]

(06-05-2010 06:07 PM)Rose of Shushan Wrote:  הִנֵּה יוֹם-בָּא, לַיהוָה

The Hebrew literally reads behold a day comes to/for YHVH, not the day. So I'm sorry if I didn't make that part clear.I am well aware that the English says "the" since I did post the Scripture in English. My apologies if I wasn't clear in my last post.I was trying to make that point because I have heard people in the past tell me that when Scripture refers to the day of the Lord its always end time and future to us. As if it was always the same day referred to and one that is in the future.

Lets take another verse which refers to the day of the Lord..

Isa 34:8 For it is the day of the LORD'S vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.
In the JPs1917 version we see its translated as

8 For the LORD hath a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the controversy of Zion.

In the Hebrew which reads

כִּי יוֹם נָקָם, לַיהוָה

Literally this reads us For day of vengeance to/for God .I am not a Hebrew scholar so anyone out there feel free to correct me but there is no ha there that would make it the day.So it refers to a day not the.However as hebrew is also translated contextually the day would make more sense I suppose. Do you see what I mean. This is why we see differences in the renderings of the JPS 1917 and the KJV. Its a matter of translation .

But the issue here is that there seem to be different days and they are all called day of the Lord yet its referring to different periods of time in history.
I am not sure if that’s what you mean Jazzy when you said

So, I, think the the day of the Lord will be the same in all cases.

Do you mean the same in that it will be a time of judgement and judgement by God?

(06-05-2010 07:27 PM)jazzy Wrote:  

(06-05-2010 06:07 PM)Rose of Shushan Wrote:  הִנֵּה יוֹם-בָּא, לַיהוָה

The Hebrew literally reads behold a day comes to/for YHVH, not the day. So I'm sorry if I didn't make that part clear.I am well aware that the English says "the" since I did post the Scripture in English. My apologies if I wasn't clear in my last post.I was trying to make that point because I have heard people in the past tell me that when Scripture refers to the day of the Lord its always end time and future to us. As if it was always the same day referred to and one that is in the future.

Lets take another verse which refers to the day of the Lord..

Isa 34:8 For it is the day of the LORD'S vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.
In the JPs1917 version we see its translated as

8 For the LORD hath a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the controversy of Zion.

In the Hebrew which reads

כִּי יוֹם נָקָם, לַיהוָה

Literally this reads us For day of vengeance to/for God .I am not a Hebrew scholar so anyone out there feel free to correct me but there is no ha there that would make it the day.So it refers to a day not the.However as hebrew is also translated contextually the day would make more sense I suppose. Do you see what I mean. This is why we see differences in the renderings of the JPS 1917 and the KJV. Its a matter of translation .

But the issue here is that there seem to be different days and they are all called day of the Lord yet its referring to different periods of time in history.
I am not sure if that’s what you mean Jazzy when you said

So, I, think the the day of the Lord will be the same in all cases.

Do you mean the same in that it will be a time of judgement and judgement by God?

Where are you getting your Hebrew references from?

(06-05-2010 08:38 PM)jazzy Wrote:  

(06-05-2010 08:04 PM)Rose of Shushan Wrote:  

Quote:Where are you getting your Hebrew references from?

Do you mean the hebrew text? You can find an online JPS 1917 edition which also has the hebrew masoretic text alongside.I find it very useful as the text is alongside its english counterpart.

http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0.htm

As to the translation, I gave a translation because it is a simple phrase.
I do read and write hebrew as well as a few other languages.However I am not a scholar in Semitic languages and bearing in mind that Biblical Hebrew and Israeli hebrew are not exactly the same I cannot rely on my own translation.In this case since its a small phrase I chipped in and like I said if anything I say is wrong I would welcome correction.

I know there is no such thing as tense in biblical Hebrew. Modern grammarians recognize that it is an "aspectual" language. Sometimes it is claimed that the messianic prophecies cited by Christians are in the past tense, and therefore they cannot refer to a future, coming Messiah. In biblical Hebrew the same form of a verb can be translated as either past, present, or future depending on the context and various grammativcal cues.

Who puts the site you linked to on the net?

[Vic]

(06-05-2010 11:16 PM)Rose of Shushan Wrote:  

Quote:I know there is no such thing as tense in biblical Hebrew. Modern grammarians recognize that it is an "aspectual" language. Sometimes it is claimed that the messianic prophecies cited by Christians are in the past tense, and therefore they cannot refer to a future, coming Messiah. In biblical Hebrew the same form of a verb can be translated as either past, present, or future depending on the context and various grammativcal cues.

Well I am no scholar but it seems that you are,thats great.:biggrin:Maybe you can explain to us what an aspectual language is.
Don't worry I'm just kidding unless you are the author of that Jews For Jesus source since you quoted it word for word
Joking aside ,although the Jews for Jesus site does give what you quoted above I find it a bit misleading ,so to speak,since there are tenses or tense forms which tell you whether a verb is in the past ,present or future.The context also influences but seeing as I am not a scholar I will leave it to a scholarly source to explain it.The following is taken from Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar

1. While the Hebrew verb, owing to these derivative forms or conjugations, possesses a certain richness and copiousness, it is, on the other hand, poor in the matter of tenses and moods. The verb has only two tense-forms (Perfect and Imperfect, see the note on §47a), besides an Imperative (but only in the active), two Infinitives and a Participle. All relations of time, absolute and relative, are expressed either by these forms (hence a certain diversity in their meaning, §106ff.) or by syntactical combinations. Of moods properly so called (besides the Imperfect Indicative and Imperative), only the Jussive and Optativeare sometimes indicated by express modifications of the Imperfect-form (§ 48).

2. The inflexion of the Perfect, Imperfect, and Imperative as to persons, differs from that of the Western languages in having, to a great extent, distinct forms for the two genders, which correspond to the different forms of the personal pronoun. It is from the union of the pronoun with the verbal stem that the personal inflexions of these tenses arise.
The note at §47a mentioned above is as follows

1. The persons of the Imperfect,[1] in contradistinction to those of the Perfect, are formed by placing abbreviated forms of the personal pronoun (preformatives) before the stem, or rather before the abstract form of the stem (קְטֹל‎). As, however, the tone is retained on the characteristic vowel of the Stem-form, or even (as in the 2nd sing. fem. and the 3rd and 2nd plur. masc.) passes over to the afformatives, the preformatives of the Imperfect appear in a much more abbreviated form than the afformatives of the Perfect, only one consonant (י‎, תּ‎, א‎, נ‍‎) remaining in each form. But as this preformative combined with the [ 126 ]stem-form was not always sufficient to express at the same time differences both of gender and number, the distinction had to be farther indicated, in several cases, by special afformatives. Cf. the table, §40c.

What I am wondering though is how we got to discuss tenses when we were discussing the Day of the Lord .No tenses in that phrase
So what has your reply on the tenses have to do with what we were discussing?

(06-05-2010 11:21 PM)Rose of Shushan Wrote:  

Quote:Who puts the site you linked to on the net?

It is a jewish group of scholars who have very kindly put up material on the web.More about them can be found on their about page.
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/about.htm

(06-06-2010 02:46 PM)Vic Wrote:  

(06-05-2010 08:38 PM)jazzy Wrote:  I know there is no such thing as tense in biblical Hebrew. Modern grammarians recognize that it is an "aspectual" language. Sometimes it is claimed that the messianic prophecies cited by Christians are in the past tense, and therefore they cannot refer to a future, coming Messiah. In biblical Hebrew the same form of a verb can be translated as either past, present, or future depending on the context and various grammativcal cues.

Who puts the site you linked to on the net?

Jazzy, this is a heads up reminder concerning quoting sources without showing author or actual source. It violates copyright which means violates copyright law. If you are going to quote something please show source, and that includes bible verses. Because you can't show links until you have 50 posts, either don't quote web sources or show the source with title and www. but make sure it doesn't hotlink. Thank you for your attention to this.

It would be good if you would also try to keep your comments to the topic at hand or peruse the hundreds of threads and see if one of your sidetrack topics is in fact something already being discussed on the forum.

Thank you for your cooperation in this.

(06-06-2010 10:25 PM)sheep wrecked Wrote:  

(06-05-2010 08:38 PM)jazzy Wrote:  I know there is no such thing as tense in biblical Hebrew. Modern grammarians recognize that it is an "aspectual" language. Sometimes it is claimed that the messianic prophecies cited by Christians are in the past tense, and therefore they cannot refer to a future, coming Messiah. In biblical Hebrew the same form of a verb can be translated as either past, present, or future depending on the context and various grammativcal cues.

I have a question for you. If there are no tenses in Biblical Hebrew, could you please explain the three different verb forms which share the same root YWH?

HYH haya [היה]: "was"; HWH howê [הוה]: " is"; and YHYH yiheyeh [יהיה]: "will be"

[Vic]

(06-07-2010 12:07 PM)jazzy Wrote:  

(06-06-2010 10:25 PM)sheep wrecked Wrote:  

(06-05-2010 08:38 PM)jazzy Wrote:  I know there is no such thing as tense in biblical Hebrew. Modern grammarians recognize that it is an "aspectual" language. Sometimes it is claimed that the messianic prophecies cited by Christians are in the past tense, and therefore they cannot refer to a future, coming Messiah. In biblical Hebrew the same form of a verb can be translated as either past, present, or future depending on the context and various grammativcal cues.

I have a question for you. If there are no tenses in Biblical Hebrew, could you please explain the three different verb forms which share the same root YWH?

HYH haya [היה]: "was"; HWH howê [הוה]: " is"; and YHYH yiheyeh [יהיה]: "will be"

(06-07-2010 01:39 PM)Rose of Shushan Wrote:  

Quote:

Jazzy you are not an admin on this forum and yet you call an admin back to topic when they ask you a question?
I find it extremely rude and insulting.
I was very interested to see your response on that so why are you being rude to the admin and not answering?

[Vic]

There's the dialogue from the other thread.

Now I am going to say to you, Jazzy, you challenged Rose with a quote from a source you have yet to show proper documentation on, and you have chosen to not view someone's copyright to that quote as important. Unless you are the author, which still should be stated, I expect to see the proper documentation. It's not only forum rules, but its law of the land.

Next, you challenged Rose about the Hebrew language she presented and yet when facts are presented, as in many of the threads, you don't bother to acknowledge them or the fact that you just might be wrong. So here is your chance to show your linguistic expertise in calling Rose's hebrew incorrect, by answering the very simple question put to you about the Hebrew tenses asked by Sheep.

The ball is in your court to prove your statements. If you cannot then you need to state that.

[Backpacker]

Is it okay to jump into this discussion? Anyone who says Hebrew doesn't have any tenses has no idea what they are talking about and I think they realized that as they had no response to the challenge LOL. However, I think he might have heard something somewhere and made that "assumption" as Biblical Hebrew verb tenses work differently than Modern Hebrew verb tenses. In Biblical Hebrew there are two tenses (perfect and imperfect), which is different from modern Hebrew, which has 3 tenses (Past, present and future, just like English).

Jacob