Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/350

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the four forms of the 2nd fem. plur. imperative in Is 3211, erroneously explained here in former editions, see now § 48 i). In Na 315 the interchange of masc. and fem. serves to express totality (the nation in all its aspects). Cf., moreover, § 145 p on other noticeable attempts to substitute the corresponding masculine forms for the feminine.

§111. The Imperfect with Wāw Consecutive.

 [a 1. The imperfect with wāw consecutive (§ 49 a–g) serves to express actions, events, or states, which are to be regarded as the temporal or logical sequel of actions, events, or states mentioned immediately[1] before. The imperfect consecutive is used in this way most frequently as the narrative tense, corresponding to the Greek aorist or the Latin historic perfect. As a rule the narrative is introduced by a perfect, and then continued by means of imperfects with wāw consecutive (on this interchange of tenses cf. § 49 a, and especially § 112 a), e.g. Gn 31 now the serpent was (הָיָה) more subtil... and he said (וַיֹּאמֶר) unto the woman; 41, 69 ff., 109 f., 1519, 1112 ff. 27 ff., 145 f., 151 f., 161 f., 211 ff., 241 f., 2519 ff., 362 ff., 372.

 [b Rem. 1. To this class belong some of the numerous imperfects consec. after various expressions of time, whenever such expressions are equivalent in moaning to a perfect[2] (viz. הָיָה it came to pass), e.g. Is 61 in the year that king Uzziah died, I saw (וָֽאֶרְאֶה), &c.; Gn 224, 2734, Ju 1116, 1 S 419, 1757, 216, Ho 111; on the use of וַיְהִי to connect expressions of time, see below, g.—It is only in late books or passages that we find the simple perfect in a clause following an expression of time, as 1 S 1755 (cf. Driver on the passage), 2 Ch 127, 158, &c., Dn 1011, 1519; the Perfect after וְ and the subject, 2 Ch 71.

 [c 2. The continuation of the narrative by means of the imperfect consec. may result in a series of any number of such imperfects, e.g. there are forty-nine in Gn. 1. As soon, however, as the connecting Wāw becomes separated from the verb to which it belongs, by the insertion of any word, the perfect necessarily takes the place of the imperfect, e.g. Gn 15 and God called (וַיִּקְרָא) the light Day, and the darkness he called (וְלַח֫שֶׁךְ קָרָא) Night; verse 10, 2:20, 11:3 and frequently.

 [d 3. Of two co-ordinate imperfects consecutive the former (as equivalent to a temporal clause) is most frequently subordinate in sense to the latter, e.g. Gn 288 f. וַיַּרְא עֵשָׂו... וַיֵּ֫לֶךְ when Esau saw that..., he went, &c.; so also, frequently וַיִּשְׁמַע, &c., Gn 3721, &c. On the other hand, a second imperfect consecutive is seldom used in an explanatory sense, e.g. Ex 210 (וַתֹּ֫אמֶר for she said); cf. 1 S 712. Other examples of the imperfect consecutive, which apparently represent a progress in the narrative, in reality only refer to the same time, or explain what precedes, see Gn 225 (וַיִּֽהְיוּ they were; but Jos 49, 1 K 88 they are); Gn 3614 (וַתֵּ֫לֶד), 36:32 (וַיִּמְלֹךְ), 1 K 144.

  1. On an apparent exception (the imperf. consec. at the beginning of whole books) see § 49 b note.
  2. Cf. Is 454, where the imperf. consec. is joined to an abrupt statement of the cause, and Jb 367, where it is joined to an abrupt statement of the place.