{"id":4647,"date":"2024-08-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/handstotheplow.org\/reading-plan\/august-13\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T07:06:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T12:06:29","slug":"august-13","status":"publish","type":"reading-plan","link":"https:\/\/handstotheplow.org\/am\/reading-plan\/august-13\/","title":{"rendered":"August 13"},"content":{"rendered":"

Insight from Proverbs 31<\/span><\/p>\n

“As any reader of this passage in English can see, translators have typically rendered Proverbs 31:10\u201331 in the present tense. Beginning in verse 11, for example, we read: ‘<\/span>The heart of her husband trusts in her,’ <\/span><\/i>and, ‘<\/span>he will have no lack of gain.’ ‘<\/span><\/i>She does him good and not harm all the days of her life.’<\/span><\/i> ‘She seeks wool and flax.’ <\/span><\/i>\u00a0These are all present-tense verbs, portraying present-time realities.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the challenge is that the dominant Hebrew verb forms used throughout this passage\u2014primarily the <\/span>qatal<\/span><\/i> \u12a5\u1293 <\/span>wayyiqtol<\/span><\/i> forms\u2014are, by their nature, typically translated as past-tense verbs. The <\/span>qatal<\/span><\/i> (the so-called ‘perfect’) and the <\/span>wayyiqtol<\/span><\/i> (the ‘vav-consecutive perfect’) forms normally portray an action as completed, and so it is natural, and consistent with the rest of the Old Testament, to render these forms as describing past-time realities.<\/span><\/p>\n

If one sets aside the introductory and concluding remarks of the poem, there are 19 <\/span>qatal<\/span><\/i> verbs and 9 <\/span>wayyiqtol<\/span><\/i> verbs\u201428 past-tense verbs in total. In contrast, there are just five <\/span>yiqtol<\/span><\/i> verbs (commonly called ‘imperfect’ verbs) in the same section. These <\/span>yiqtol<\/span><\/i> verbs can legitimately be translated as expressing habitual or recurring past actions when they appear in past-time contexts.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what many modern translations have done is taken these five <\/span>yiqtol<\/span><\/i> verbs\u2014which do often convey present or future-time action\u2014and allowed them to shape the reading of the other 28 verbs. In effect, these five verbs have caused translators to read the entire passage in the present tense, even though the majority of the verbs are in forms that are normally rendered as past.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think that\u2019s how we\u2019re supposed to read the passage. The <\/span>yiqtol<\/span><\/i> form, by nature, expresses incomplete action. It doesn\u2019t convey a clear beginning or end. That makes it flexible\u2014it can describe future action, or action that happens regularly or habitually, either in the present or in the past. And in this case, given the overwhelming presence of completed-action verb forms (<\/span>qatal<\/span><\/i> \u12a5\u1293 <\/span>wayyiqtol<\/span><\/i>), we should let those 28 past-tense verbs inform our interpretation of the five <\/span>yiqtol<\/span><\/i> verbs. We should read them as habitual actions that occurred regularly in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n

This has a significant effect on how we understand the poem. Most readers take this passage as a kind of daily planner\u2014portraying a woman engaged in seventeen different activities all at once, right now. But that\u2019s because the English translations present it as a description of her current life. In reality, what we have here is not a snapshot of present activity but a reflection on a life well-lived. It\u2019s a poetic tribute, a retrospective meditation on the noble, strong, dignified, excellent wife\u2014not telling us who she <\/span>is<\/span><\/i>, but who she <\/span>has been<\/span><\/i>. It reads more like a husband\u2019s celebration at her 70th birthday, or perhaps a eulogy at her funeral, looking back and honoring her past faithfulness, strength, and wisdom.”<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_crdt_document":""},"class_list":["post-4647","reading-plan","type-reading-plan","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/handstotheplow.org\/am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reading-plan\/4647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/handstotheplow.org\/am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reading-plan"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/handstotheplow.org\/am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/reading-plan"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/handstotheplow.org\/am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}