Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/352

 3. The serves, in the cases treated under a–h, to represent either expressly, or at least to a great extent, a chronological succession of actions or events; elsewhere it expresses those actions, &c., which represent the logical consequence of what preceded, or a result arising from it by an inherent necessity. Thus the is used—

(a) As a final summing up of the preceding narrative, e.g.,  (in this way) the field became (legally) the property of Abraham, &c.; ,.

(b) To express a logical or necessary consequence of that which immediately precedes, e.g., and he still holdeth fast his integrity,  (as it now appears) groundlessly movedst me against him;  so that they are afraid ...; even a consequence which happens conditionally,   ... Another instance of the kind perhaps (if the text be correct) is   (must die).

Rem. Such consecutive clauses frequently occur after interrogative sentences, e.g. who art thou (i.e. art thou so helpless),  (must needs be) afraid? (cf., where in a very similar context is used with the imperfect);  ; 31:27.

4. As regards the range of time it is to be carefully noticed—

(a) That the may represent all varieties in the relations of tense and mood, which, according to, follow from the idea of the imperfect;

(b) That the more precise determination of the range of time to which an relates must be inferred in each case from the character of the preceding tense (or tense-equivalent), to which it is attached, in a more or less close relation, as temporal or logical sequence. Thus the serves—

(1) To represent actions, events, or states, which are past (or were repeated in past time), when it is united with tenses, or their equivalents, which refer to an actual past.

Cf. the examples given above, under a and f, of the imperfect consecutive as an historic tense. The imperfect consecutive also frequently occurs as the continuation of a perfect (preterite) in a subordinate clause; e.g., , , , , , , &c.; also in  is the continuation of a preterite, contained, according to the sense, in the preceding. .—In, 34 the imperfect consecutive is joined to an imperfect denoting the past in a conditional sentence. An imperfect consecutive occurs in dependence on a perfect which has the sense of a pluperfect, e.g. in , f., 31:19, 34 (now Rachel had taken the teraphim,