Prophetic excellent tense – Wikipedia
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Literary approach used within the Bible
The prophetic excellent tense is a literary approach used within the Bible that describes future occasions which might be so sure to occur that they’re referred to within the past tense as if they’d already occurred.[1]
Historical past[edit]
The class of “prophetic excellent” was already steered by medieval Hebrew grammarians,[2] resembling David Kimhi: “The matter is as clear as if it had already handed,”[3] or Isaac ben Yedaiah:
“[The rabbis] of blessed reminiscence adopted, in these phrases of theirs, within the paths of the prophets who converse of one thing which can occur sooner or later within the language of the previous. Since they noticed in prophetic imaginative and prescient that which was to happen sooner or later, they spoke about it previously tense and testified firmly that it had occurred, to show the understanding of his [God’s] phrases — might he be blessed — and his constructive promise that may by no means change and his beneficent message that won’t be altered.” (Isaac ben Yedaiah):[4]
Gesenius describes it as follows:
“The right serves to precise actions, occasions, or states, which the speaker needs to signify from the perspective of completion, whether or not they belong to a determinate previous time, or prolong into the current, or whereas nonetheless future, are pictured as of their accomplished state.” (GKC §106a)[5]
“[The perfect can be used to] categorical information that are undoubtedly imminent, and, subsequently, within the creativeness of the speaker, already completed (perfectum confidentiae), e.g. Nu 17:27… Gn 30:13, 1 S 6:5 …, Pr 4:2. Even in interrogative sentences, Gn 18:12, Nu 17:28, 23:10, Ju 9:9, 11, Zc 4:10 (?), Pr 22:20.8 This use of the proper happens most regularly in prophetic language (perfectum propheticum). The prophet so transports himself in creativeness into the longer term that he describes the longer term occasion as if it had been already seen or heard by him, e.g. Is 5:13 …; 19:7, Jb 5:20, 2 Ch 20:37. Not occasionally the imperfect interchanges with such perfects both within the parallel member or additional on within the narrative.” (GKC §106n)[5]
In line with Waltke & O’Connor:
“Referring to absolute future time, a perfective type could also be persistent or unintentional. A persistent (future) perfective represents a single state of affairs extending from the current into the longer term…. With an unintentional perfective a speaker vividly and dramatically represents a future state of affairs each as full and as unbiased…. This use is particularly frequent in prophetic handle (therefore it is usually referred to as the “prophetic excellent” or “perfective of confidence”).”[6]
Klein has tried to determine all established cases of the prophetic excellent.[7] Notarius, siding with Rogland,[2] argues that the “prophetic excellent” is “a metaphorical use of the previous tense within the retrospective future-oriented report.”[8]
Examples[edit]
- “Due to this fact my persons are gone into captivity, as a result of they don’t have any data: and their honourable males are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.” – Isaiah 5:13[9]
- “He’s come to Aiath, he’s handed to Migron; at Michmash he hath laid up his carriages: They’re gone over the passage: they’ve taken up their lodging at Geba; Ramah is afraid; Gibeah of Saul is fled. Carry up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim: trigger it to be heard unto Laish, O poor Anathoth. Madmenah is eliminated; the inhabitants of Gebim collect themselves to flee. As but shall he stay at Nob that day: he shall shake his hand towards the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.” – Isaiah 10:28-32[10]
- “Due to this fact thus saith the Lord God of Israel towards the pastors that feed my folks; Ye have scattered my flock, and pushed them away, and haven’t visited them: behold, I’ll go to upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord.” – Jeremiah 23:2[11]
- “The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no extra rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there’s none to boost her up.” – Amos 5:2[12]
References[edit]
- ^ Zuck, Roy B. (April 1, 2002). Basic Bible Interpretation. David C Cook dinner. p. 117. ISBN 9780781438773.
- ^ a b Max F. Rogland, Alleged Non-past Makes use of of «qatal» in Classical Hebrew (Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2003), pp. 53-56.
- ^ Bruce Waltke & M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), p. 464, n. 45
- ^ Robert Chazan, Daggers of Religion (Berkeley: UC Press, 1989), p. 87
- ^ a b Wilhelm Gesenius, E. Kautzsch, and A. E. Cowley, Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910).
- ^ Waltke and O’Connor, §30.5.1e, 489-90
- ^ George Linam Klein, “The ‘Prophetic Good'” Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 16 (1990): 45-60
- ^ Tania Notarius, The Verb in Archaic Biblical Poetry: A Discursive, Typological, and Historic Investigation of the Tense System (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2013), p.88.
- ^ Isaiah 5:13
- ^ Isaiah 10:28–32
- ^ Jeremiah 23:2
- ^ Amos 5:2
