THE POWER OF THIS YIQTOL VERB אֶהְיֶה

Source of photograph: https://oneyearchallengeblog.org/2017/09/05/3-lessons-from-the-burning-bush/

THE POWER OF THIS YIQTOL VERB אֶהְיֶה

וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים אֶל־מֹשֶׁה אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה וַיֹּאמֶר כֹּה תֹאמַר לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶהְיֶה שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם׃

Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”


In my earlier post, I mentioned that it is important for us to learn the Hebrew grammar if we want to do a proper exegesis of the Bible. 

Here, I give an example where I get a better insight into the Hebrew text: 

In the Hebrew text, we see God using the Yiqtol or Qal Imperfect verb אֶהְיֶה (pronounced as 'eiyeh' and often translated as 'I AM') to tell Moses who He is. He did not even use a proper noun or a Name as one would expect, but He simply told Moses about His existence.

There is a lot of insight packed into just this one word after you understand the grammar behind it.

*  *  *

First, allow me to explain: Hebrew tenses are not like English, which has past, present and future tenses to tells us the time of an action. Instead, in Hebrew, the emphasis is always on whether it is a Perfective or Imperfective Tense.

Imagine my father is reading the newspapers in the living room. If I take a video of him reading the newspapers, you will see the action of reading the newspaper as a continuous (on-going or imperfective) action. But if I captured his action of reading the newspaper and show it to you as a photograph, it will tell you this is a completed (or perfective) action.

Unlike the past, present and future tenses in English which gives us a sense of time when the action was, is or will be done, the perfective tense in Hebrew does not tell us when my father read the newspaper but that he completed the action of reading the newspaper. You don't see him doing it, or still doing it. It is a completed action. The photograph 'froze' his action.

In short, whereas the photograph tells you that he read (completed action) the newspapers, the video shows you that he is reading (continuous action) the newspapers. In Hebrew, we call the completed action as the Qatal verb; the continuous action is the Yiqtol verb.

*  *  *

Moving forward, we now look at the meaning of this one word, אֶהְיֶה

Meaning of אֶהְיֶה

The word אֶהְיֶה is a combination of two parts -- the pronominal prefix and the root word.

We know that this is a Yiqtol verb when אֶ is used as a pronominal prefix. The prefix אֶ tells us that the subject of the verb is the First Person Common Singular pronoun, or 'I', in short. God was referring to Himself as 'I' instead of 'We'.

I will now change the colour of the font for אֶ and put it in the background so that you can now see the root word (in purple) of the Yiqtol verb,  אֶהְיֶה.

• Strong's Hebrew Dictionary defines the root word הָיָה hayah as a primitive root; meaning 'to exist', i.e. be or become, come to pass (always emphatic, and not a mere copula or auxiliary):—beacon, x altogether, be(-come), accomplished, committed, like), break, cause, come (to pass), do, faint, fall, + follow, happen, x have, last, pertain, quit (one-)self, require, x use.
• אֶהְיֶה, being a Yiqtol (or imperfective) verb, we can now translate it in our own words, as: "I am in a continuous existence. I am not bound by time or space." This is why we see how this is sometimes translated elsewhere as, "I was, I am and I will be..."

This is a wonderful insight, indeed! It did not occur to me until last night.

Instead of just translating it as "I AM WHO I AM...," as though God was trying to tell Moses, in the same manner that we would tell people, "You just take me for who or what I am," now, I see God using the yiqtol (or imperfective) verb to describe Himself as being in a state of continuous existence.

Every created thing or being has a beginning, but here, the yiqtol verb tells us that it is not even correct to say that God was there 'right from the beginning'. With God, there is no 'beginning' but a continuous existence both before and beyond what we know as Time. In short, God told Moses that there are three dimensions to His existence:

• He was already there before the beginning of Time or creation (eternity past);
• He is also here (now and present);
• He will be with us after the end of Time (eternity future)

His existence is from eternity past to eternity future!

This is a wonderful answer to people who ask, "Is there a God?" The next time this question is asked, I will refer to this verse and explain these three words, אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה .







-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Read why you need to spend time learning the proper Hebrew Grammar instead of just depending on some transliteration that you commit to memory without even understanding the way how the language works.