The eternal Bible – vav ha hefuc

The 6^th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, vav, is also a prefix which would normally mean ‘and’ or ‘with’, but in the unique style of the Hebrew Pentateuch or Torah, the five books scribed by Moses, and other texts in the Tanach or Hebrew scriptures, it is used in a special time-twisting manner. If  vav prefixes a verb in future tense, it means past tense, and vice versa.  (See wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefixes_in_Hebrew second chart.)

This unique conversion of future to past and past to future is unnecessary grammatically, as  Biblical Hebrew clearly had already developed proper verb forms for past and future tenses.

So why the use of this unusual way of presenting ‘past’ and ‘future’ intensions and actions?

 

I suggest that it reflects the unique nature of the Hebrew Bible as the words of an eternal God -- whose words and actions transcend time. 

 

The Tradition  of Mistranslating Vav Ha Hefuch

From the Latin Vulgate translation through that of King James’s (Medieval, poetic English) to translations by  even Jewish scholars (See Hertz edition, the Soncino ed.) the error of translating the vav ha hefuch as “and” + inverted verb tense has been part of western Biblical consciousness for some 2000 years. 
 

Even the earlier, 3^rd century BCE Greek Septuagint made this mistake.  The Greek conjunction καὶ,  meaning “and/also”,  is used at the start of every sentence where Vav Ha Hefuch appears.  (See Genesis ch 1, Greek and modern English translation at http://en.katabiblon.com/us/index.php?text=LXX&book=Gn&ch=1&interlin=on.)

To my knowledge, only the recent Art Scroll, Stone edition, The Chumash (1993), corrects this error and the above cited online Septuagint modern English translation.

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 The Vulgate, as a loose translation with a sense of flair and Latin style, does not simply (and boringly) use the equivalent of ‘and’ each time.  It uses a variety of alternatives consistent with Latin grammar and style.

 

The opening lines of the Vulgate’s Genesis are indicative.

Sentence 2:   Terra autem (BUT/HOWEVER/MOREOVER/ALSO) erat inanis et vacua ...

Sentence 3:   Dixitque (AND – as a standard Latin suffix to a verb) ... Et (AND) facta est lux.

Sentence 4:    Et (AND) vidit Deus ...

Sentence 5:    Appellavitque (AND  -- as a verb suffix) ...

It is the King James Version that made the repetitive AND the norm, used at the start of almost every sentence.  The pattern serves to link the sentences and ideas, and creates a poetic rhythm.

 

Unfortunately, the Vulgate’s ‘upgrading’ of  vav ha hefuch to polished Latin alternatives  -- for variety -- or the repetitive pattern of ANDs set by the Greek Septuagint and the King James English translation, distort the original Hebrew text’s real message.   The eternal nature of God’s words, actions and commands is lost.

 

What, then, would be a better translation of the vav ha hefuch?

Unfortunately, I have no easy, answer. One would have to add to each such verb the qualifier – “in His timeless and eternal voice”.

This is not very poetic, and may make the text seem overly wordy and repetitive as vav ha hefuchit shows up so often.  But it is the most accurate reflection of the Bible’s Hebrew and the divine intension.