Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/336

 sented as already accomplished in the conception of the speaker, e.g.  (my hand in ratifying an oath) ;  ;  ;   (but in a different context in ver. 15, I have counselled);  (prop. I say) I decide (I consider as hereby settled) ; I declare,.

(c) To express facts which have formerly taken place, and are still of constant recurrence, and hence are matters of common experience (the Greek gnomic aorist), e.g. for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken  them that seek thee. Cf. ver. 13, also, and.

Rem. In almost all the cases discussed in No. 2 (included under the English present) the imperfect can be used instead of the perfect, wherever the action or state in question is regarded, not as already completed, but as still continuing or just taking place (see ). Thus,  and   have practically the same meaning. Hence also it very frequently happens that the imperfect corresponds to such perfects in poetic or prophetic parallelism, e.g., f., ,.

3. To express future actions, when the speaker intends by an express assurance to represent them as finished, or as equivalent to accomplished facts:

(a) In contracts or other express stipulations (again corresponding to the English present, and therefore closely related to the instances noted under i), e.g. the field I give  thee; cf.ver. 13 and, , , ; in a threat, , (unless, with Wellhausen,  is to be read).—Especially in promises made by God, , , ,.

(b) To express facts which are undoubtedly imminent, and, therefore, in the imagination of the speaker, already accomplished (perfectum confidentiae), e.g. .,  ,. Even in interrogative sentences,, , , , (?),. This use of the perfect occurs most frequently in prophetic language (perfectum propheticum). The prophet so trans-