“There I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill-country of the Emori, which Adonai our God is giving to us. Look! Adonai your God has placed the land before you. Go up, take possession, as Adonai, the God of your ancestors, has told you. Don’t be afraid, don’t be dismayed.’”-Deuteronomy 1:20-21
There’s a key Hebrew grammar point I have to explain that at first may not seem like a big deal…
…yet it is VERY IMPORTANT because it’s connected to Biblical prophecy.
Let’s get started.
The first thing you need to understand is that compared to English, Biblical Hebrew doesn’t really have past, present and future tenses, at least not in the way we think about it.
For instance in English, we’ll say…
“I ATE the hamburger (simple past)” or…
“I EAT the hamburger (simple present)” or…
“I WILL EAT the hamburger (future).
However, in comparison, Biblical Hebrew relies mainly on perfect or imperfect tenses.
For example…”I HAVE EATEN the hamburger” or “I AM EATING the hamburger“.
Notice in the above examples there is a blurring between the past and present and the present and the future.
When you say “have eaten“, you don’t know when the action ended but do you know that it has ended.
And when you say “am eating“, you understand that the action is happening right now but you don’t know for how long the action will continue.
Let me try to explain this in super simple terms.
In Biblical Hebrew, tenses only tell us one of the following two things:
WHETHER AN ACTION IS COMPLETED…
…or…
WHETHER AN ACTION IS ONGOING.
And that’s it.
When reading the Bible, one determines when a specific action took place by the overall context.
Got it?
At this point you’re probably wondering am I actually reading a blog about the Bible or did I just accidentally click into an English grammar teaching site.
No, you didn’t make a mistake.
This is the one and only Messianic Revolution blog.
Okay, let’s tie all of this back to the Torah, specifically verse 20 of Chapter One of Deuteronomy.
Verse 20 tells us that HASHEM “is giving” the Hill Country of the Amorites to Israel.
Now here’s the key point I want to make.
The “giving” of the land HASHEM is referring to here has NOT ended.
It is still an ongoing process.
When other Bible translations say “will give to us” or “gives to us” or “is about to give to us“, that is NOT correct.
Why?
Because those types of wording fix the event of “giving the Land of Canaan to the Hebrews” to a certain point in time.
In other words, these translations are implying the “giving” is a one-time event that is either happening NOW or is going to happen in the FUTURE.
When you apply this either/or black-and-white grammar being to ancient Biblical Hebrew…
…IT SIMPLY WON’T WORK.
Because what’s really being expressed is that Israel is currently IN THE PROCESS of taking the land…
…and that it is a process that is continuing to this very day.
It’s important to understand this since this phenomenon is repeated throughout the whole Bible.
Not properly understanding Hebrew tenses has been the cause of why so many folks misunderstand the ancient prophecies (which actually aren’t ancient) in the Bible.
Always thinking in terms of past, present and future is a characteristic of rigid gentile/Greek linear thinking.
And that dog won’t hunt.
The mind behind the Bible is NOT Greek or Western…
…and that includes the New Testament…
…even if it is written in Greek.
If you grew up in a Western culture, the best way to understand the prophecies in the Bible is to think of them like this.
Even though many of the Biblical prophecies have already happened once…they will repeat again in the future.
They are cyclical in nature as opposed to linear or one-time events…
…which is why I don’t even want to use the word “future“…
…because as I just said the prophecy may repeat again…
…which means what was once future will become past and continue on.
The prophetic process is cyclical and will keep going until brought to their fullest completion.
Remember..
…God lives OUTSIDE of time.
…and His Word is eternal.
One caveat however.
Everything I’ve just said only applies to Biblical Hebrew and not to modern Hebrew.
Modern Hebrew has all of the past, present and future tenses just like English does.
I’m done.
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