Note 1221 — Chapter XXIX

A.V., adhering to the Massoretic text, in which the verbs are pointed for the past, has evidently understood them as instances of the prophetic perfect. But “this is grammatically indefensible”: Driver, in loco; see his Heb. Tenses, § 82, Obs. Calvin and others, who take the verbs of ver. 18 as future, accept those of the next verse as past and with it begin the narrative. But if God’s answer to His people’s prayer be in the past, so must His jealousy and pity. All these verbs are in the same sequence of time. Merx proposes to change the vowel-points of the verbs and turn them into futures. But see above, p. 395. ver. 21 shows that Jehovah’s action is past, and Nowack points out the very unusual character of the construction that would follow from Merx’s emendation. Ewald, Hitzig, Kuenen, Robertson Smith, Davidson, Robertson, Steiner, Wellhausen, Driver, Nowack, etc., all take the verbs in the past.