On The Isaiah Forty Wars: "Shall Be" As A Tenseless Modal
Does “shall be” mean the future? I ask the question because Robert Young (Young’s Literal Translation of the Bible) insisted that the ancient Hebrew had no future tense. As I understand it, the Old Testament prophets wrote exclusively in the past and present tenses. That is how I mentally read the Bible, even though it is translated with future tense ‘wills’ and ‘shalls’ throughout. The translators have moved everything which now IS into the future. I do not like that. I move it back into my present.
A couple of weeks ago I was reminded of modals (that's what I get for going through old class notes). I had never heard of modals before my TESOL grammar class at university. In English, modals are tenseless “helping” verbs used to express ability, possibility, permission, obligation, or advice. Modals may also express POTENTIAL, DESIRE, OFFER, AND PREFERENCE. They suggest mood: mood regarding a condition which does not presently exist but which could possibly exist. You’d never know I once studied grammar, would you?
Can/could/be able to exist
May/might exist
Must/have to exist
Shall/should exist
Will/would exist
Modals are important. They provide distance to make our speech more gentle and polite, considerate, and less direct: “Could you, if you wouldn’t mind?” They keep us from being abrupt and offensive. Modals are used to refer to something in the future, but address our mood about it right now. E.g., “May I leave now?” I.e., right now I want to leave, but I haven’t left yet. Being somewhere else is a potential state I want to actualize.
In some languages regular verbs and/or adverbs fill the same function as modal auxiliaries. It has been suggested that in ancient Hebrew modals were expressed through word order. This I can neither confirm nor deny, but see the references below. The function of modals may be either social interaction, "You may leave the room"; or logical probability, "It may rain tomorrow" (examples from Celce-Murcia, Freeman. 1983. The Grammar Book: an ESL-EFL Teacher's Course. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House Publishers).
Again, modals deal with things like social interaction, possibility, preference, and things which can exist but do not yet exist.
The auxiliary verbs 'shall' and 'will,' however, are also used to indicate the future tense, things we have to wait for. Do you see the problem? Modals are tenselessly talking about present potentials, and future tense talks about later conditions. What do we do when translators translate potentials in the future tense from a language WHICH DID NOT HAVE A FUTURE TENSE?
When I looked at my class notes on modals, I immediately thought of John the Baptist in the Book of Luke 3:4-6, "As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God" (KJV, parentheses mine).
That's a lot of shalls. Alexander also uses shall, my Stone Tanach uses wills, and while Young translated the New Testament Greek futures with shall, he translated the ancient Hebrew of Isaiah 40:3-5 with presents and pasts--no futures!
How are we to read and understand what Isaiah was saying? This is super-hypercritical, so I have been mulling over Isaiah 36-39 and God's (!) segue into chapter 40, which John the Baptist quoted. If you recall, Hezekiah was one of the three good kings of Judea and Jerusalem (along with David and Josiah). He was healed by God and granted 15 more years of life, and the shadow the sun cast on his stairway had regressed ten steps as a sign confirming this. These were significant miracles. The king of Babylon heard of them and sent congratulations to Hezekiah. Hezekiah showed Babylon’s emissaries everything he had, and was told by Isaiah that everything he had, up to and including the children he hadn't yet had, was to be taken away to Babylon (Isaiah 39). And he is totally cool with it! "This is a beautiful oracle of Maryah (YHWH in this case) that you spoke; there shall be peace and prosperity in my day" (Isaiah 39:8 Alexander, parentheses mine).
A beautiful oracle? No sackcloth and ashes, no national repentance, no wailing remember my good works as in Hezekiah’s conflict with the king of Assyria in chapters 36 and 37? No. It seems that Hezekiah was perfectly okay with Judea’s submission to Babylon, with his sons becoming eunuchs in its king’s courts. And here is the thing: I think he was, for God had given all the world to the King of Babylon. Hezekiah heard and was glad. He was not one to rebel against or to resist God's will. THIS IS THE OFFERING OF ISAAC ALL OVER AGAIN - in potential. Judea ultimately had a hard time submitting to Babylon, for few had the same mindset as Hezekiah. The last thing anyone wants to do is to submit to God’s (or anyone else’s) will instead of their own.
I think we still have that problem. God responded to Hezekiah's acceptance of the situation with a plea, "Help my people. Help my people" (Isaiah 40:1 Alexander). This plea and the rest of the Book of Isaiah is so disconsonant with all that has gone before (chapters 1-39) that many scholars (and the Jews themselves) believe that Isaiah 40 and following was a completely separate work written by different author, "Deutero-Isaiah." Deutero-Isaiah supposedly wrote at the end of the exile Isaiah had just announced. I, on the other hand, think Isaiah had simply seen the whole period and purpose of the Season of Grace and the Jew’s destiny in it, and explained it all to his king, Hezekiah. No one else seems to see it, hence the Isaiah 40 wars. Even Bullinger in the Companion Bible suggests that chapter 40 is the beginning of a new prophecy, thus making the same mistake he notes the revisers made in separating Isaiah 35 from chapter 34 (see Appendix 82 of the Companion Bible). It isn't a new prophecy. It is the natural continuance of Isaiah's point of view.
I am not able to parse the Hebrew in 40:1-5, but I believe it is both possible and probable that God’s imperative plea is not a call for help FOR his people but a call for help FROM his people: "Help, my people. Help, my people. Please, help ME!" I am betting that God wanted participation and support in Hezekiah’s acceptance of God’s will.
Which is why I believe Isaiah 40:1-5 may be a MODAL request to presently view the DESIRED condition as already existing. If so, God is telling us HOW to pray! I think that is what we see. The "people" of God are our thoughts. If we are to submit to the will of God and to go along in his nature, our thoughts have to get on board with his program. Significant is Victor Alexander's note on Isaiah 40:2, "Speak from the heart* of Jerusalem." The literal Aramaic expression is, "Fill by her he out." "Fill" is to complete. "Her," of course, is Jerusalem, our minds. "He" is Hezekiah's intent. Read it, "Complete Hezekiah's intention by your thoughts. . . . "
How shall we imagine? The picture we are to have in our minds shall be that which is desired as though it already exists. For the mind bears the power of the Kingdom, God's consciousness which "must be being restored“ (Fenton). In the amnesia which followed our flip into humanhood, we lost sight of our Kingdom. For this amnesia we have received double our share of all the sins/variances from God's nature and character. Things for us are pretty uneven. But the Voice says, "In the wilderness (the mind in meditation) open up the way for Maryah (YHWH), and build a path in the valley" (Alexander, parentheses mine). This opening and building is mental activity—things for us to DO for God. These are imaginal acts, not things to wait for.
"All the gorges shall be filled." I.e., this is how to think of the gorges: as filled. "Shall be" is not a reference to a future time! It is how we are supposed to think of things right NOW. Think of them as being the way they are supposed to be. Therefore, the gorges in our mental opinion shall be already in the state of having been filled. Receive them as BEING that way. And all the mountains and highlands shall be (in our minds) made low, and the rugged terrain shall be (pictured as being) smoothed over, and the inaccessible country shall be (in our imagination and faith) already made into a plain. "Thus the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see him, for it shall be the mouth of Maryah (YHWH) that speaks" (Isaiah 40:1-5 Alexander). When it works, you have found God to be your own wonderful human imagination. For we all are one.
"It shall be the mouth of Maryah that speaks." The mouth of Maryah, of YHWH, is our imagination! Remember, this is God pleading for your practice.
_________________________________________________
Notes:
Biblical Hebrew, according to Robert Young in Young's Literal Translation of the Bible, DID NOT HAVE A FUTURE TENSE. This should not surprise us, for modern English does not have inflicted future tense verbs, either! We use auxiliary verbs to indicate future tense.
From YOUNG'S LITERAL TRANSLATION OF THE HOLY BIBLE:
Style of the Sacred Writers, and of this Translation:
In sum, the Hebrew had 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.
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."
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."
It would be endlessly good for you to read Young's Preface, at least his SUMMARY OF THE NEW VIEW OF THE HEBREW VERB near its end.
Young translates Isaiah 40:1-5, as he does the whole Old Testament, in the past and present tenses without future-indicating auxiliary verbs:
"Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people, saith your God. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her, that her warfare hath been completed, that accepted hath been her punishment, that she hath received from the hand of Jehovah double for all her sins. A voice is crying -- in a wilderness -- Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make straight in a desert a highway to our God. Every valley is raised up, and every mountain and hill become low, and the crooked place hath become a plain, and the entangled places a valley. And revealed hath been the honour of Jehovah, and seen [it] have all flesh together, for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken."
Wow. "And seen [it] have all flesh together." THAT is faith. Yet my Stone Tanach is replete with FUTURE auxiliaries, much like this from Victor Alexander's translation from the anient Aramaic:
Isaiah 40:
1. "Help my people, help my people," said your Allaha (God). "Speak from the heart* of Jerusalem and call her, for she was filled with power and she had her fill of sin; indeed,* she received from the hand of the Lord double [her share] of all the sins." The voice that called in the wilderness, "Open* up the way for the Lord, and build a path in the valley* for our God." All the gorges shall be filled and all the mountains and highlands shall be made low,* and the rugged terrain shall be smoothed* over and the inaccessible country shall be made into a plain.* Thus the glory of Maryah (the Lord) shall be revealed* and all flesh shall see him, for it shall be the mouth of Maryah (the Lord) that speaks."
*40:2.1 Lit. Ar. idiomatic expression: "Fill by her he out."
*40:2.2 Lit. Ar. id.: "And."
*40:3.1 Lit. Ar. id.: "Turn," or "change."
*40:3.2 Lit. Ar. id.: Or: "Crevices."
*40:4.1 Lit. Ar. id.: "Gentle."
*40:4.2 Lit. Ar. idiomatic construction: "And the particles shall be used as filler."
*40:4.3 Lit. Ar. id.: "Difficult."
*40:4.4 NB! Prophesying about the coming of Eashoa (Jesus) to the World.
*40:5 NB! John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness honors and glorifies the Lord. Others, such as the Apostles of Eashoa, shall follow.
Is there modal word order used in the original Hebrew? THAT is the question. Would to God we all spoke Hebrew and/or Aramaic.
Fascinating stuff.
References:
See Celce-Murcia, noted above
The History of Modality and Mood
Johan Van Der Auwera and Alfonso Zamorano Aguilar, in
The Oxford Handbook of Modality and Mood,
edited by Jan Nuyts and Johan Van Der Auwera
Mood/Modality in Biblical Hebrew Verb Theory
John A. Cook, Eisenbrauns.
A couple of weeks ago I was reminded of modals (that's what I get for going through old class notes). I had never heard of modals before my TESOL grammar class at university. In English, modals are tenseless “helping” verbs used to express ability, possibility, permission, obligation, or advice. Modals may also express POTENTIAL, DESIRE, OFFER, AND PREFERENCE. They suggest mood: mood regarding a condition which does not presently exist but which could possibly exist. You’d never know I once studied grammar, would you?
Can/could/be able to exist
May/might exist
Must/have to exist
Shall/should exist
Will/would exist
Modals are important. They provide distance to make our speech more gentle and polite, considerate, and less direct: “Could you, if you wouldn’t mind?” They keep us from being abrupt and offensive. Modals are used to refer to something in the future, but address our mood about it right now. E.g., “May I leave now?” I.e., right now I want to leave, but I haven’t left yet. Being somewhere else is a potential state I want to actualize.
In some languages regular verbs and/or adverbs fill the same function as modal auxiliaries. It has been suggested that in ancient Hebrew modals were expressed through word order. This I can neither confirm nor deny, but see the references below. The function of modals may be either social interaction, "You may leave the room"; or logical probability, "It may rain tomorrow" (examples from Celce-Murcia, Freeman. 1983. The Grammar Book: an ESL-EFL Teacher's Course. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House Publishers).
Again, modals deal with things like social interaction, possibility, preference, and things which can exist but do not yet exist.
The auxiliary verbs 'shall' and 'will,' however, are also used to indicate the future tense, things we have to wait for. Do you see the problem? Modals are tenselessly talking about present potentials, and future tense talks about later conditions. What do we do when translators translate potentials in the future tense from a language WHICH DID NOT HAVE A FUTURE TENSE?
When I looked at my class notes on modals, I immediately thought of John the Baptist in the Book of Luke 3:4-6, "As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God" (KJV, parentheses mine).
That's a lot of shalls. Alexander also uses shall, my Stone Tanach uses wills, and while Young translated the New Testament Greek futures with shall, he translated the ancient Hebrew of Isaiah 40:3-5 with presents and pasts--no futures!
How are we to read and understand what Isaiah was saying? This is super-hypercritical, so I have been mulling over Isaiah 36-39 and God's (!) segue into chapter 40, which John the Baptist quoted. If you recall, Hezekiah was one of the three good kings of Judea and Jerusalem (along with David and Josiah). He was healed by God and granted 15 more years of life, and the shadow the sun cast on his stairway had regressed ten steps as a sign confirming this. These were significant miracles. The king of Babylon heard of them and sent congratulations to Hezekiah. Hezekiah showed Babylon’s emissaries everything he had, and was told by Isaiah that everything he had, up to and including the children he hadn't yet had, was to be taken away to Babylon (Isaiah 39). And he is totally cool with it! "This is a beautiful oracle of Maryah (YHWH in this case) that you spoke; there shall be peace and prosperity in my day" (Isaiah 39:8 Alexander, parentheses mine).
A beautiful oracle? No sackcloth and ashes, no national repentance, no wailing remember my good works as in Hezekiah’s conflict with the king of Assyria in chapters 36 and 37? No. It seems that Hezekiah was perfectly okay with Judea’s submission to Babylon, with his sons becoming eunuchs in its king’s courts. And here is the thing: I think he was, for God had given all the world to the King of Babylon. Hezekiah heard and was glad. He was not one to rebel against or to resist God's will. THIS IS THE OFFERING OF ISAAC ALL OVER AGAIN - in potential. Judea ultimately had a hard time submitting to Babylon, for few had the same mindset as Hezekiah. The last thing anyone wants to do is to submit to God’s (or anyone else’s) will instead of their own.
I think we still have that problem. God responded to Hezekiah's acceptance of the situation with a plea, "Help my people. Help my people" (Isaiah 40:1 Alexander). This plea and the rest of the Book of Isaiah is so disconsonant with all that has gone before (chapters 1-39) that many scholars (and the Jews themselves) believe that Isaiah 40 and following was a completely separate work written by different author, "Deutero-Isaiah." Deutero-Isaiah supposedly wrote at the end of the exile Isaiah had just announced. I, on the other hand, think Isaiah had simply seen the whole period and purpose of the Season of Grace and the Jew’s destiny in it, and explained it all to his king, Hezekiah. No one else seems to see it, hence the Isaiah 40 wars. Even Bullinger in the Companion Bible suggests that chapter 40 is the beginning of a new prophecy, thus making the same mistake he notes the revisers made in separating Isaiah 35 from chapter 34 (see Appendix 82 of the Companion Bible). It isn't a new prophecy. It is the natural continuance of Isaiah's point of view.
I am not able to parse the Hebrew in 40:1-5, but I believe it is both possible and probable that God’s imperative plea is not a call for help FOR his people but a call for help FROM his people: "Help, my people. Help, my people. Please, help ME!" I am betting that God wanted participation and support in Hezekiah’s acceptance of God’s will.
Which is why I believe Isaiah 40:1-5 may be a MODAL request to presently view the DESIRED condition as already existing. If so, God is telling us HOW to pray! I think that is what we see. The "people" of God are our thoughts. If we are to submit to the will of God and to go along in his nature, our thoughts have to get on board with his program. Significant is Victor Alexander's note on Isaiah 40:2, "Speak from the heart* of Jerusalem." The literal Aramaic expression is, "Fill by her he out." "Fill" is to complete. "Her," of course, is Jerusalem, our minds. "He" is Hezekiah's intent. Read it, "Complete Hezekiah's intention by your thoughts. . . . "
How shall we imagine? The picture we are to have in our minds shall be that which is desired as though it already exists. For the mind bears the power of the Kingdom, God's consciousness which "must be being restored“ (Fenton). In the amnesia which followed our flip into humanhood, we lost sight of our Kingdom. For this amnesia we have received double our share of all the sins/variances from God's nature and character. Things for us are pretty uneven. But the Voice says, "In the wilderness (the mind in meditation) open up the way for Maryah (YHWH), and build a path in the valley" (Alexander, parentheses mine). This opening and building is mental activity—things for us to DO for God. These are imaginal acts, not things to wait for.
"All the gorges shall be filled." I.e., this is how to think of the gorges: as filled. "Shall be" is not a reference to a future time! It is how we are supposed to think of things right NOW. Think of them as being the way they are supposed to be. Therefore, the gorges in our mental opinion shall be already in the state of having been filled. Receive them as BEING that way. And all the mountains and highlands shall be (in our minds) made low, and the rugged terrain shall be (pictured as being) smoothed over, and the inaccessible country shall be (in our imagination and faith) already made into a plain. "Thus the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see him, for it shall be the mouth of Maryah (YHWH) that speaks" (Isaiah 40:1-5 Alexander). When it works, you have found God to be your own wonderful human imagination. For we all are one.
"It shall be the mouth of Maryah that speaks." The mouth of Maryah, of YHWH, is our imagination! Remember, this is God pleading for your practice.
_________________________________________________
Notes:
Biblical Hebrew, according to Robert Young in Young's Literal Translation of the Bible, DID NOT HAVE A FUTURE TENSE. This should not surprise us, for modern English does not have inflicted future tense verbs, either! We use auxiliary verbs to indicate future tense.
From YOUNG'S LITERAL TRANSLATION OF THE HOLY BIBLE:
Style of the Sacred Writers, and of this Translation:
In sum, the Hebrew had 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.
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."
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."
It would be endlessly good for you to read Young's Preface, at least his SUMMARY OF THE NEW VIEW OF THE HEBREW VERB near its end.
Young translates Isaiah 40:1-5, as he does the whole Old Testament, in the past and present tenses without future-indicating auxiliary verbs:
"Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people, saith your God. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her, that her warfare hath been completed, that accepted hath been her punishment, that she hath received from the hand of Jehovah double for all her sins. A voice is crying -- in a wilderness -- Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make straight in a desert a highway to our God. Every valley is raised up, and every mountain and hill become low, and the crooked place hath become a plain, and the entangled places a valley. And revealed hath been the honour of Jehovah, and seen [it] have all flesh together, for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken."
Wow. "And seen [it] have all flesh together." THAT is faith. Yet my Stone Tanach is replete with FUTURE auxiliaries, much like this from Victor Alexander's translation from the anient Aramaic:
Isaiah 40:
1. "Help my people, help my people," said your Allaha (God). "Speak from the heart* of Jerusalem and call her, for she was filled with power and she had her fill of sin; indeed,* she received from the hand of the Lord double [her share] of all the sins." The voice that called in the wilderness, "Open* up the way for the Lord, and build a path in the valley* for our God." All the gorges shall be filled and all the mountains and highlands shall be made low,* and the rugged terrain shall be smoothed* over and the inaccessible country shall be made into a plain.* Thus the glory of Maryah (the Lord) shall be revealed* and all flesh shall see him, for it shall be the mouth of Maryah (the Lord) that speaks."
*40:2.1 Lit. Ar. idiomatic expression: "Fill by her he out."
*40:2.2 Lit. Ar. id.: "And."
*40:3.1 Lit. Ar. id.: "Turn," or "change."
*40:3.2 Lit. Ar. id.: Or: "Crevices."
*40:4.1 Lit. Ar. id.: "Gentle."
*40:4.2 Lit. Ar. idiomatic construction: "And the particles shall be used as filler."
*40:4.3 Lit. Ar. id.: "Difficult."
*40:4.4 NB! Prophesying about the coming of Eashoa (Jesus) to the World.
*40:5 NB! John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness honors and glorifies the Lord. Others, such as the Apostles of Eashoa, shall follow.
Is there modal word order used in the original Hebrew? THAT is the question. Would to God we all spoke Hebrew and/or Aramaic.
Fascinating stuff.
References:
See Celce-Murcia, noted above
The History of Modality and Mood
Johan Van Der Auwera and Alfonso Zamorano Aguilar, in
The Oxford Handbook of Modality and Mood,
edited by Jan Nuyts and Johan Van Der Auwera
Mood/Modality in Biblical Hebrew Verb Theory
John A. Cook, Eisenbrauns.
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
10:51 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home