just curious about Hebrew verb tense in Isaiah...

by lost_sheep 7 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  lost_sheep

  I was comparing the NWT & the NIV the other day & noticed there's a discrepancy at Isaiah 48:18 & 19... the NIV reads:

  18 If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
  19 Your descendants would have been like the sand, your children like its numberless grains; their name would never be cut off nor destroyed from before me."

  I don't have my NWT handy, but from memory, it's something like "If only you would pay attention to my commands, your peace would be like a river...... your descendants would be like grains of sand..." I'm just wondering what the original verb tense is in Hebrew, & which version renders it more correctly. I checked several other translations at www.biblegateway.com & all i checked agree with the NIV rendering. Also, can anyone recommend a good interlinear version of the Old Testament? I've really taken an interest in the original languages of the Bible lately.
  Thanks to all you brains who have any insight on this! May your seed multiply to time indefinite! :-D
  lost_sheep
• 

  z

  Translated from Hebrew

  18 Oh that thou wouldest hearken to My commandments! then would thy peace be as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea;
  19 Thy seed also would be as the sand, and the offspring of thy body like the grains thereof; his name would not be cut off nor destroyed from before Me.

  and Hebrew
• 

  Gamaliel

  I took Hebrew for 4 years in college but it's been half a lifetime of no use so far, so I'm just grabbing most of this from elsewhere. I agree that the NWT has misjudged the tense here, but this particular tense does give a bit of leeway.
  
  The NWT says:
  
  18 O if only you would actually pay attention to my commandments! Then your peace would become just like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. 19 And your offspring would become just like the sand, and the descendants from your inward parts like the grains of it. One’s name would not be cut off or be annihilated from before me.”
  
  It's the "perfect tense" and translators are given some leeway between present and past, even between future and present for this tense. It is most often used of past (completed) action -- or present, but completing action. It is rare that it would be used for something more like a future subjunctive as the NWT does here, but I don't think it's impossible if the translator interprets the context to mean a continued condition. The near parallel in verse 19 uses the "imperfect" which is sometimes considered reason enough to translate this nearby verse as if it is a "continuing condition". That's a fair reason to imply that this is a kind of ongoing warning, therefore including the future. It should not have been limited to a future warning however, as the NWT translates it, because the emphasis is on a lesson just learned. There is no warrant from the LXX to move the tense from perfect to imperfect or implied past to implied future.
  
  Note Young's (18 & 19): O that thou hadst attended to My commands, Then as a river IS thy peace, And thy righteousness as billows of the sea, And as sand IS thy seed, And the offspring of thy bowels as its gravel, Not cut off nor destroyed his name before Me.
  
  and Darby's (19): Oh that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! Then WOULD thy peace HAVE BEEN as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea;
  
  A quick synopsis of the "perfect tense" is here taken from blueletterbible.com
  
  The Perfect expresses a completed action.
  
  1) In reference to time, such an action may be:
  
  1a) one just completed from the standpoint of the present
  "I have come" to tell you the news
  
  1b) one completed in the more or less distant past
  in the beginning God "created"
  "I was (once) young" and "I have (now) grown old" but
  "I have not seen" a righteous man forsaken
  
  1c) one already completed from the point of view of another
  past act
  God saw everything that "he had made"
  
  1d) one completed from the point of view of another action
  yet future
  I will draw for thy camels also until "they have done"
  drinking
  
  2) The perfect is often used where the present is employed in
  English.
  
  2a) in the case of general truths or actions of frequent
  occurrence -- truths or actions which have been often
  experienced or observed
  the grass "withereth"
  the sparrow "findeth" a house
  
  2b) an action or attitude of the past may be continued into
  the present
  "I stretch out" my hands to thee
  "thou never forsakest" those who seek thee
  
  2c) the perfect of intransitive verbs is used where English
  uses the present; The perfect in Hebrew in such a case
  emphasises a condition which has come into "complete
  existence" and realisation
  "I know" thou wilt be king
  "I hate" all workers of iniquity
  
  2d) Sometimes in Hebrew, future events are conceived so
  vividly and so realistically that they are regarded as
  having virtually taken place and are described by the
  perfect.
  
  2d1) in promises, threats and language of contracts
  the field "give I" thee
  and if not, "I will take it"
  
  2d2) prophetic language
  my people "is gone into captivity"
  (i.e. shall assuredly go)
  
  
  -----------
  
  I don't know if any of this helps at all. It seems to me to be a small mistake in how interpretation could effect translation, but not a terribly seriously breach of clear-cut rules of translation.
  
  Gamaliel
• 

  mustang

  I'll have to wait until I get home and look some of this up, but here are some comments for now:

  Try the Septuagint (LXX) on for size; this is a bit "tangential" and "off the point" in that it is Greek. I use the Samuel Bagster reprint of their 1851(?) version; it is bilingual, Greek/English, not interlinear.

  However, you said you were interested in the languages of the Bible :)

  The interesting thing here is that the LXX is the "bible of Jesus' day" and is what he likely used in those synagogue appearances that he made. It was done ~300 BC and took the Hebrew into the Greek, for the newly arising influence of the Greek empire and the growing Greek speaking Jewish communities.

  As for Hebrew Interlinear, I use one by Kohlenberger.

  I got both of these books at Border's; if they aren't in the shelf they can be ordered.

  When using both of these books, it is handy to have the Strong's Concordances that have the Hebrew and Greek Lexicons embedded in the Concordance. You might want to get one of these and get familiar with the numbering scheme that Strong's uses to refer to EVERY WORD IN THE BIBLE.

  One reason that I suggested the LXX, even though it is Greek, is that the Masorites did some unsavory things in making their translations (~300-1000 AD, I believe). They were under a pressure from the Christians and did not like where the Christians were going with "their own Hebrew scriptures". These Christians were starting to use Hebrew Scriptures against the Jewish rabbis. So the Masorites downplayed things that might be used to connect Jesus with the messianic prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures among other things.

  This is not good, because the Masoretic Text's are pretty much the basis for whatever Hebrew versions that you can get your hands on today.

  When you get all of these books in your hands, you might try reading the passages in the Gospels where Jesus goes to the synagogue and reads from the text of Isaiah in the LXX, the Hebrew Interlinear, the NWT, KJV and so forth.

  I'll look up the scriptures that you mentioned when I get home; I'll also post some full titles, ISBN's and publishers details.

  Mustang
• 

  Narkissos

  Hebrew syntax is no rocket science, but imo the NWT is on the unlikely side on this one.

  The main point is that it is an optative clause, introduced by the preposition lu'.

  When lu' is followed by the "imperfect" tense (generally implying a present or future action), it is usually the expression of a still possible wish, e.g. Genesis 17,18, "(by all means) let Ismael live before your face," "if only Ismael could live..." Job 6:2, "if only my vexation were weighed"...

  Otoh, when lu' is followed by the "perfect" tense, as in Isaiah 48,18f, it is rather a "wish on the past," that is, the rhetorical expression of something which should have happened (but did not). Here in the protasis, it seems to express an unfulfilled condition with its unreal consequences in the apodosis -- e.g. If I had known (protasis) I would have done otherwise (apodosis) => actually I didn't know and I didn't do otherwise. In French we call that mood irréel du présent, which my French-English dictionary painfully translates as "mood expressing unreal condition".
  

  Other OT examples of this construction, lu' + perfect (from Joüon's Grammaire de l'hébreu biblique, § 163c), Numbers 6,2 "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!" (=> we have not); 20:3: ""Would that we had died when our kindred died before the LORD!"; Joshua 7:7 "Would that we had been content to settle beyond the Jordan!"

  On edit, other examples of the same construction with a similar unreal implication, Judges 8:19: "if you had saved them alive, I would not kill you." 13:23: "If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these." 1 Samuel 14:30: "How much better if today the troops had eaten freely of the spoil taken from their enemies."

  But the other option, although exceptional, is not altogether impossible, e.g. Isaiah 63:19/64:1, which also has lu' + perfect and which most translations interpret as a present (although somehow "impossible") wish: "O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence..."

  That the "rule" is not strict is well shown in Psalm 81:14(13), which has both tenses in parallel lines: "O that my people would listen (perfect) to me, that Israel would walk (imperfect) in my ways!"
• 

  Justin

  Here's more information on the interlinear translation already mentioned:

  Full title: The Interlinear NIV Hebrew-English Old Testament

  Translator: John R. Kohlenberger III

  Publisher: Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan
• 

  mustang

  Right-toe, that's the one, Justin

  The ISBN is 0-310-40200-X; I paid $89.99 @ Border's and I believe that I had to special-order it. But the next time I went into the store, one was on the shelf; they must have ordered two

  It escaped me that it is NIV; that raised my eyebrows but the back cover explains that the English parallel text is NIV.

  The Hebrew source is Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, described as a standard text.

  The LXX is "The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English",

  "Originally published by Samuel Bagster & Sons, Ltd., London, 1851"; the ISBN is 0-913573-44-2. I paid $44.95 @ Borders. This too is not likely to be on the shelf.

  My copy of the Strong's that I mentioned is a 40th printing in 1981 of

  "THE EXHAUSTIVE CONCORDANCE OF THE BIBLE:

  SHOWING EVERY WORD OF THE TEXT OF THE COMMON ENGLISH VERSION OF THE CANONICAL BOOKS,

  AND

  EVERY OCCURRENCE OF EACH WORD UN REGULAR ORDER;

  TOGETHER WITH A

  KEY-WORD COMPARISON

  OF SELECTED WORDS AND PHRASES IN THE

  KING JAMES VERSION

  WITH

  FIVE LEADING CONTEMPORARY TRANSLATIONS

  ALSO BRIEF

  DICTIONARIES OF THE HEBREW AND GREEK WORDS

  OF THE ORIGINAL,

  WITH REFERENCES TO THE ENGLISH WORDS:

  BY

  JAMES STRONG, S.T.D., LL.D."

  I'm not kidding, that's what the title page says; well, 'Strong's Exhaustive Concordance' will do, in most cases.

  The Copyright date is 1890, but again, I have a 1981 printing. That gives it an ISBN, which is 0-687-40031-7 (thumb-indexed). The plain version is a –9.

  I got this one at a garage sale for 10$; I'm OK with fundies cleaning out their attics when the luster wears off.

  Best wishes on your searches and researches.

  Mustang
• 

  lost_sheep

  I really appreciate all your work, guys. It's been a great help in understanding this. I have a lot of reading to do to catch up with you all. I'll be there one day though. ;-)
  
  Haven't been able to get on the forum the past few days, i just wanted to pop into this thread to thank you.
  
  lost_sheep