The Wayyiqtol as ‘Pluperfect’: When and Why

Abstract

This article examines the possibility that the Hebrew wayyiqtol verb form itself, without a previous perfect, may denote what in Western languages would be expressed by a pluperfect tense, and attempts to articulate how we might discern it in a given passage, and the communicative effect of such a usage. The article concludes that there is an unmarked pluperfect usage of the wayyiqtol verb form; and that it may be detected when one of three conditions is met. Application of these results demonstrates that this usage is not present in 1 Samuel 14:24, while it is present in Genesis 2:19.