The Old Testament Hebrew doesn't have a future tense? Self-correct by converting future tenses to present?

This post was written in response to Robert Young's (author of Young's Analytical Concordance of the Holy Bible) assertion that the ancient Hebrew language did not have a future tense, but instead used the present and past in special ways to indicate the future. I may have jumped the gun in publishing this assertion with the advice to mentally convert future tenses in the Bible into presents.

Victor Alexander (v-a.com) is expert in the ancient Aramaic language and has been translating the most ancient available versions of the Bible in Aramaic into English. He is not using the modern Aramaic Bible, as that is a fairly recent translation from the Greek into Aramaic, and translating it into English gets us nowhere. He is using the ancient ancient. Aramaic is close kin to Hebrew and was the native language of the authors of the New Testament. The ancient Aramaic preserves words, perspectives and passages which have become altered or dropped in the more recent copies of the Hebrew and Greek scriptures.

Anyway, when I read the Bible, I adjust for my personal perspective, which is that metaphysically, all is present: whatever the Ineffable intends is as done, and the future is available now.

I e-mailed Robert Young's assertion (below) to Mr. Alexander and posed the question: is there a future tense in the Aramaic? He graciously explained the workings of the Aramaic future tense to me and I feel much better and more confident with his translations (v-a.com/bible). Below is the Assertion by Young that the ancient Hebrew had no future tense. I have posted Mr. Alexander's response and explanation of the Aramaic future tense at http://imagicworldview.blogspot.com/2015/03/victor-alexander-discusses-future-tense.html, which please see.

Below is the original post at this location:

This is from the introduction to Robert Young's Literal Translation of the Holy Bible. This introduction is available at http://www.ccel.org/bible/ylt/ylt.htm. You can read the Bible text at http://www.biblestudytools.com/ylt/.

The important point for you is that the Hebrew writers, writing from their perspectives, wrote using the present and past tenses. As Young stresses in "View of Hebrew Tenses As Seen in the New Translation," below:

THE HEBREW has only two tenses, which, for want of better terms, may be called Past and Present.

The past is either perfect or imperfect, e.g., 'I lived in this house five years,' or 'I have lived in this house five years;' this distinction may and can only be known by the context, which must in all cases be viewed from the writer's standing-point.
In every other instance of its occurrence, it points out either--

1. A gentle imperative, e.g., "Lo, I have sent unto thee Naaman my servant, and thou hast recovered him from his leprosy;" see also Zech. 1.3 &c; or
2. A fixed determination that a certain thing shall be done, e.g., "Nay, my lord, hear me, the field I have given to thee, and the cave that is in it; to thee I have given it; before the eyes of the sons of my people I have given it to thee; bury thy dead;" and in the answer, "Only--if thou wouldst hear me--I have given the money of the field."

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If you want to read the Bible more accurately, read the Old Testament without future tenses, because the Hebrew didn't have a future tense. I "self-correct" in this way when read Victor Alexander's translation from the ancient Aramaic, as well as when I read my King James Companion Bible by Bullinger.


Says Mr. Young:

There are two modes of translation which may be adopted in rendering into our own language the writings of an ancient author; the one is, to bring him before us in such a manner as that we may regard him as our own; the other, to transport ourselves, on the contrary, over to him, adopting his situation, modes of speaking, thinking, acting,--peculiarities of age and race, air, gesture, voice, &c. Each of these plans has its advantages, but the latter is incomparably the better of the two, being suited--not for the ever-varying modes of thinking and acting of the men of the fifth, or the tenth, or the fifteenth, or some other century, but--for all ages alike. All attempts to make Moses or Paul act, or speak, or reason, as if they were Englishmen of the nineteenth century, must inevitably tend to change the translator into a paraphrast or a commentator, characters which, however useful, stand altogether apart from that of him, who, with a work before him in one language, seeks only to transfer it into another.
In prosecuting the plan thus adopted, a literal translation was indispensable. No other kind of rendering could place the reader in the position contemplated, side by side with the writer--prepared to think as he does, to see as he sees, to reason, to feel, to weep, and to exult along with him. His very conception of time, even in the minor accidents of the grammatical past, present, future, are to become our own. If he speaks of an event, as now passing, we are not, on the logical ground of its having in reality already transpired, to translate his present as if it were a past; or if, on the other hand, his imagination pictures the future as if even at this moment present, we are not translators but expounders, and that of a tame description, if we take the liberty to convert his time, and tense--the grammatical expression of his time--into our own. King James' translators were almost entirely unacquainted with the two distinctive peculiarities of the Hebrew mode of thinking and speaking, admitted by the most profound Hebrew scholars in theory, though, from undue timidity, never carried out in practice, viz:--

1. That the Hebrews were in the habit of using the past tense to express the certainty of an action taking place, even though the action might not really be performed for some time. And
2. That the Hebrews, in referring to events which might be either past or future were accustomed to act on the principle of transferring themselves mentally to the period and place of the events themselves, and were not content with coldly viewing them as those of a bygone or still coming time; hence the very frequent use of the present tense.

These two great principles of the Hebrew language are substantially to be found in the works of Lee, Gesenius, Ewald, &c.; but the present writer has carried them out in translation much beyond what any of these ever contemplated, on the simple ground that, if they are true, they ought to be gone through with. While they affect very considerably the outward form of the translation, it is a matter of thankfulness that they do not touch the truth of a single Scripture doctrine--not even one.

1. It would appear that the Hebrew writers, when narrating or describing events which might be either past or future (such as the case of Moses in reference to the Creation or the Deluge, on the one hand, and to the Coming of the Messiah or the Calamities which were to befall Israel, on the other), uniformly wrote as if they were alive at the time of the occurrence of the events mentioned, and as eye-witnesses of what they are narrating. It would be needless to refer to special passages in elucidation or vindication of this principle essential to the proper understanding of the Sacred Text, as every page of this Translation affords abundant examples. It is only what common country people do in this land at the present day, and what not a few of the most popular writers in England aim at and accomplish--placing themselves and their readers in the times and places of the circumstances related.
   This principle of translation has long been admitted by the best Biblical Expositors in reference to the Prophetic Delineation of Gospel times, but it is equally applicable and necessary to the historical narratives of Genesis, Ruth, etc.
   
2. The Hebrew writers often express the certainty of a thing taking place by putting it in the past tense, though the actual fulfillment may not take place for ages. This is easily understood and appreciated when the language is used by God, as when He says, in Gen. xv. 18, "Unto thy seed I have given this land;" and in xvii. 4, "I, lo, My covenant is with thee, and thou hast become a father of a multitude of nations." The same thing is found in Gen. xxiii. 11, where Ephron answers Abraham: "Nay, my lord, hear me; the field I have given to thee, and the cave that is in it; to thee I have given it; before the eyes of the sons of my people I have given it to thee; bury thy dead." And again in Abraham's answer to Ephron: "Only--if thou wouldst hear me--I have given the money of the field; accept from me, and I bury my dead there." Again in 2 Kings v. 6, the King of Syria, writing to the King of Israel, says: "Lo, I have sent unto thee Naaman, my servant, and thou hast recovered him from his leprosy,"--considering the King of Israel as his servant, a mere expression of the master's purpose is sufficient. In Judges viii. 19, Gideon says to Zebah and Zalmunnah, "If ye had kept them alive, I had not slain you." So in Deut. xxxi. 18, "For all the evils that they have done"--shall have done.
   It would be easy to multiply examples, but the above may suffice for the present. Some of these forms of expression are preceded by the conjunction "and" (waw, in Hebrew), and a very common opinion has been that the conjunction in these cases has a conversive power, and that the verb is not to be translated past (though so in grammatical form), but future. This is, of course, only an evasion of the supposed difficulty, not a solution, and requires to be supported by the equally untenable hypothesis that a (so-called) future tense, when preceded by the same conjunction waw ("and,") often becomes a past. Notwithstanding these two converting hypotheses, there are numerous passages which have no conjunction before them, which can only be explained by the principle stated above.
   
3. The Hebrew writers are accustomed to express laws, commands, etc., in four ways:
   1. By the regular imperative form, e.g., "Speak unto the people."
   2. By the infinitive, "Every male of you is to be circumcised."
   3. By the (so-called) future, "Let there be light;" "Thou shalt do no murder; " "Six days is work done."
   4. By the past tense, "Speak unto the sons of Israel, and thou hast said unto them."
   There can be no good reason why these several peculiarities should not be exhibited in the translation of the Bible, or that they should be confounded, as they often are, in the Common Version. In common life among ourselves, these forms of expression are frequently used for imperatives, e.g., "Go and do this,"--"This is to be done first,"--"You shall go,"--"You go and finish it." There are few languages which afford such opportunities of a literal and idiomatic rendering of the Sacred Scriptures as the English tongue, and the present attempt will be found, it is believed, to exhibit this more than any other Translation.
   The three preceding particulars embrace all that appears necessary for the Reader to bear in mind in reference to the Style of the New Translation. In the Supplementary "Concise Critical Commentary," which is now in the course of being issued, abundant proofs and illustrations will be found adduced at length.

View of Hebrew Tenses As Seen in the New Translation.

THE HEBREW has only two tenses, which, for want of better terms, may be called Past and Present. The past is either perfect or imperfect, e.g., 'I lived in this house five years,' or 'I have lived in this house five years;' this distinction may and can only be known by the context, which must in all cases be viewed from the writer's standing-point.
In every other instance of its occurrence, it points out either--

1. A gentle imperative, e.g., "Lo, I have sent unto thee Naaman my servant, and thou hast recovered him from his leprosy;" see also Zech. 1.3 &c; or
2. A fixed determination that a certain thing shall be done, e.g., "Nay, my lord, hear me, the field I have given to thee, and the cave that is in it; to thee I have given it; before the eyes of the sons of my people I have given it to thee; bury thy dead;" and in the answer, "Only--if thou wouldst hear me--I have given the money of the field."

The present tense--as in the Modern Arabic, Syriac, and Amharic, the only living remains of the Semitic languages--besides its proper use, is used rhetorically for the future, there being no grammatical form to distinguish them; this, however, causes no more difficulty than it does in English, Turkish, Greek, Sanscrit, &c., the usages of which may be seen in the Extracts from the principal grammarians.
In every other instance of its occurrence, it points out an imperative, not so gently as when a preterite is used for this purpose, nor so stern as when the regular imperative form is employed, but more like the infinitive, Thou art to write no more; thou mayest write no more.
The present participle differs from the present tense just in the same manner and to the same extent as "I am writing, or, I am a writer," does from, "I write, or, I do write."
THE ABOVE VIEW of the Hebrew tenses is equally applicable to all the Semitic languages, including the Ancient and Modern Arabic, the Ancient and Modern Syriac, the Ancient and Modern Ethiopic, the Samaritan, the Chaldee, and the Rabbinical Hebrew--not one of which is admitted to have the Waw Conversive.
It may be added, that all the Teutonic languages--fourteen in number--agree with the Semitic in rejecting a future tense; the futurity of an event being indicated either by auxiliary verbs, adverbs, and other particles, or by the context.