Hebrew

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While Mishnaic Hebrew and later phases of the language exhibit a fairly simple tense-based system with past, present, and future tense expressed by the verb, the system in Biblical Hebrew is more complex, as any verb form can be used in reference to any of the tenses. The name ‘tenses’ as applied to Hebrew verbs is misleading. The so-called Hebrew ‘tenses’ do not express the time but merely the state of an action. Indeed were it not for the confusion that would arise through the application of the term ‘state’ to both nouns and verbs,’states’ would be a far better designation than ‘tenses.’ It must always be borne in mind that it is impossible to translate a Hebrew verb into English without employing a limitation (viz. of time) which is entirely absent in the Hebrew. The ancient Hebrews never thought of an action as past, present, or future, but simply as perfect, i.e. complete, or imperfect, i.e. as in course of development. When we say that a certain Hebrew tense corresponds to a Perfect, Pluperfect, or Future in English, we do not mean that the Hebrews thought of it as Perfect, Pluperfect, or Future, but merely that it must be so translated in English. The time of an action the Hebrews did not attempt to express by any verbal form. Hezekiah First, Hebrew verbs do not have tense – there is no past, present and future tense in Hebrew. We have various forms of the Hebrew verbs such as Qal, Niphal, Pual, perfect, etc, for which English has no equivalent at [...x]