We have a similar idiom in English: "I shall go to the city, make my purchases, and return." The latter verbs are so dependent upon the former for their time that the characteristic auxiliaries of the future tense may be omitted, and there is no obscurity in consequence. The relative future is often found in hypothetical sentences, the protasis being put in the absolute future, the apodosis in the relative. Deut. xi. 13, 14: "If ye shall hearken diligently, ..... I will send "rain." The following sentence affords a good illustration of each of the foregoing idioms. Deut. vii. 12: "Wherefore it shall come to pass if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep and do וְשָׁמַר that the Lord thy God shall keep, וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם וַעֲשִׂיתֶם them unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers." The last three verbs are put in the relative future tense because depending on , though the dependence of the last differs from that of the two that precede it, it being the apodosis of the sentence. We have seen that an absolute future may be used to denote a past customary act. If when so used it takes a relative future after it, that verb will likewise indicate a customary action, but one occurring subsequently to the former, while both were past at the time of the narration. Thus Gen. ii. 6: "But there went up (or used to go up) a mist, and it watered " (Hiph. pret. used as a rel. fut.). The watering was subsequent to the ascent of the vapor, and the ability of a preterite to denote this futurition is derived from the future tense with which it is joined. But since the absolute future is used in the sense of a past, so also is the relative that depends upon it. We saw likewise that an absolute past tense is often used. by the prophets in predicting future events, because events future to us are fixed and determined in a sense accomplished to the mind of God. This form, too, may have a relative depending upon it, and deriving from it a future significance, and to be translated into the future. Thus of Ishmael God said to Abraham (Gen. xvii. 20): “I will bless him (I have done it in my counsels, it shall be accomplished in the order of time), and make him fruitful, and multiply him exceedingly." Here, then, we have three preterites; the first used absolutely, though with a future signification; the latter two depending upon it, and transformed by it into relative futures. This idiom is perhaps the farthest remove of any we have considered from the normal use of the tenses, and yet perfectly intelligible. To one using the Hebrew as a spoken language, or to one familiar with it as a written language, it would occasion no doubt as to the time of the events referred to. This tense is sometimes used in uttering commands that depend on events or statutes that are supposed to be known. Sometimes employed at the opening of verses, chapters, or bocks where there is an implied connection with something that has gone before, and that is in the mind of the hearer or reader. It is sometimes introduced by participles, infinitives, and imperatives, in which case it will take its time from those words, always looking forward, and never backward, from the point of time of the verb that introduces it. It has not been our purpose to exhaust the subject by going into all the idiomatic forms of the language; but simply to refer to those that give the Hebrew student the most difficulty, and that are best adapted to illustrate the point under consideration, viz. that the second form of the Hebrew verb is normally a future, and not a preterite. This assumption, it will be seen, harmonizes all the leading facts of the language, and brings them under a simple law of attractionthe dependence of one verb upon another, of the secondary upon the primary, the relative upon the absolute. What the translator has mainly to do then is to determine the signification in respect to time of the absolute or leading verbs. This being done the tense of the relatives will be derived from them, and make no special difficulty. It may perhaps render more intelligible the points we have made, if we bring them together, and express them in as brief terms as possible. We shall then see at a glance the fertility of the Hebrew language in its methods of indicating the times in which actions are perforined and the relations they sustain to each other. 1. By their preterite, in its normal use, they denoted a past completed act more or less remote. 2. By their future normally used, an action yet to take place in the near or remote future. These tenses are often used antithetically in the same sentence. 3. Since the present is simply the point where the past and the future touch each other, each of these tenses was employed as a present. (a) If the act is conceived of as related to the past, the preterite would more naturally be employed. This form is often used in speaking of that which is habitual and in stating general truths. (b) If, on the other hand, the action under consideration is conceived of as standing in relation with the future, this tense will probably be used. Like the foregoing it may be employed to denote that which is not only occurring, or true now, but that which will occur and be true in the future. 4. The preterite is often used by the prophets when predicting the future, because the events predicted are finished in the plan of God. 5. The future is sometimes employed in narrating events long since past. This is true especially of customary acts. It is implied that they will be done in the future. 6. The future is used in describing a past act that followed some other past act or event which is expressed by a preterite. It was in the future when the former event occurred, though both alike were in the past at the time of the narration. 7. By their relative past and future tenses, the Hebrews could denote an act subsequent to another act, whether past, present, or future. The time of the relative tenses will, in every instance, be derived from the absolute on which they depend, and, like the march of time, they always look forward, never backward. ARTICLE VI. THE NATURAL BASIS OF OUR SPIRITUAL LANGUAGE.1 BY REV. W. M. THOMSON, D.D., OF THE SYRIAN MISSION, AUTHor of Divine Names and Titles. THE THE subject discussed in the previous Article is far from being exhausted, and the present is a continuation of it; with this difference, however, that the names which will now come under consideration have no necessary connection with, or dependence upon, the Theocracy. They may have grown out of it, and have derived much of their significance from it, yet their true basis can be traced to something else in, or belonging to, this land of the Bible: something in the physical features of the country and its productions; in its geographical position and relations; in the manners, customs, and institutions of the people dwelling in it, and in the marvellous incidents which have symbolized its wonderful history. Our present task, therefore, is to ascertain, if we can, by what process of analogy, or otherwise, these common things, and the names for them, became so transfigured from the earthly to the spiritual and the divine, that they could be safely applied to the invisible and incomprehensible God; and when so applied, what is their true significance, what the specific nature and amount of revelation which they contain and teach? Those who may never have had occasion to make a special study of this subject will probably be somewhat surprised at the number and variety of these divine names. They may even think many of them quite beneath the dignity of the subject, or wanting in due reverence, and some which even violate the requirements of modesty; but it will appear on 1 This is the third Article of the Series, commenced in Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. xxix. p. 1. examination that none of them can be justly charged with these deviations from propriety, when due allowance is made for the age, the country, and the customs of the people; nay, those most open to the objections referred to (such, for example, as the names, offices, actions, and emotions. emanating from the domestic, parental, and conjugal relations) will be found to be eminently beautiful, instructive, and comforting. It may be thought by some that in the entire course of this discussion too much importance is attached to the matter of mere language. "What is in a name"? Words are but empty air; names are but the exterior and useless shell; the thing signified is the kernel. But this is a very inadequate statement. Language is far more than the mere vesture, or even the vehicle, of thought; it is both parent and nurse of the thought. There is much in a name; most of all in these divine names. They are our teachers and guides, without which we can make no valuable acquisitions in this field of knowledge. They are self-luminous lamps, hung around the infinite mystery of the invisible God, and penetrating the thick darkness in which he dwells, so far as man's feeble sight can pierce. In this sense no part of the Bible is more truly inspired than these divine names and titles; and this we propose to establish and illustrate in the course of these Essays. We continue this general subject here and now, because we shall thereby be detained in the society of the inspired poets of the Bible; for it is in the sweet songs of Zion that these names occur most frequently, and in greatest variety. To them, therefore, we resort for examples and illustrations. It coincides with the general line of our argument to state, and that emphatically, that although the names under consideration were originally ascribed to Jehovah with reference mainly to his Theocratic character and relations, yet the natural basis for them (without which they never would have been thought of) actually existed in Palestine; and the sacred poets were, by providential arrangements, intimately associated with VOL. XXXI. No. 121. 18 |