Page 133 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW
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112 COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW
We demonstrate with a well-known verse from Isaiah: “And it shall come to
pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on
the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills” (Isa. 2:2).
Analyzing how this verse is given in Hebrew, the sentence “And it shall come to
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pass” is expressed by a single word: ve-hayah. Hayah means, simply, “it was.”
The conversive vav attached to the word (pronounced “ve”), reverses the direction

into the future to mean “it shall be” (or “it shall come to pass,” as it appears in
most English translations). The same rule virtually applies to all other verbs in the
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same verse: “and shall be exlated” is in Hebrew ve-nissa —meaning, literally, “and
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it was exalted.” However, knowing that the vav is the conversive vav, the ve-nissa
means “it shall be exalted.”
Regrettably, many biblical English translations ignore the function of the con-
versive vav in cases when it functions only as that, and add the word “and” in

front of a word, thus confusing the conversive vav with the conjunctive vav. For
example, one may doubt that Isaiah vision should start with “and,” or should it
more correctly be read, without the “and,” as: “It shall come to pass in the last
days …” (Isa. 2:2).
Similar examples may be given for verbs in future tense that, with the conver-
sive vav , acquire the meaning of a past tense. Let us take the most well-known

first chapter of Genesis. The only verbs therein that are given in the right past

tense relate to creation or describing the just created. First, there are the first two
verses: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was
without form and void … And a wind from God moved over the surface of the
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waters” (Gen. 1:1–2). The “created” is given in the right past tense: bara. So are

all other verbs in these two verses. Later, describing the creation of the first human
beings, male and female, the right past tense is again used, but only once, in part
of the verse (verse 27). But that is it. All other verbs revert to the regular biblical
pattern, where a verb in the past tense, preceded by ve, implies a future tense, and
vice versa.
Consider this example: “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light”
(Gen. 1:3). Both descriptive verbs, “said” and “there was,” are in future tense,
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preceded by ve (or va). The first is, in Hebrew, va-yomer. Yomer means “he

will say.” But the va reverses the direction from future to past. The second verse
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is va-yehi (and there was). Yehi alone means “it will be”, but the conversive va
renders it past tense.
It is interesting to note that in the second chapter of Genesis, verses 5 and 6,
there is a mixing together of all time tenses, with and without the conversive vav.

Yet they all refer to the past tense. Thus, “And no plant of the field was yet in the
earth” (5), is literally, in Hebrew: “And no plant will yet be in the earth” (5). No
conversive vav, yet a future tense conveys a past tense.