THE PLUPERFECT IN HEBREW

Chapter 3.

To my knowledge, there is no work in the English language dealing speeifically with the Hebrew verb comparable to that published in 1892 by S. R. Driver⁸⁴ entitled, A Treatise on the Hebrew Tenses. The expanded title as it appears on the first page is, "A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew and some Other Syntactical Questions". As might be expected from a man with Driver's scholarship, the treatment of tenses is thorough and preCise, and massively illustrated with innumerable examples taken from Scripture.
In the present Chapter, our primary concern is with the use of the pluperfect in Hebrew and we shall not here enter into detailed consideration of the other tenses, of such questions as the "waw consecutive", the mode of expressing continuing present action, or action in the future. Nor will the philosophy of the Hebrew timesense be examined in any depth, remarkable as it is, in spite of the fact that much of Driver's treatise deals with this aspect of the subject. All these are of importance for the student of Hebrew, of course, but they are explored here only to the extent that they contribute to an understanding of the Hebrew use of the pluperfect.
Suffice it to say that the formal paradigm of the Hebrew verb presents us with a perfect tense for describing completed action, and an imperfect tense for describing incomplete action: and these two tenses are by various means made to serve all the other tenses, pluperfect, present, and future. For example, the verb qatal (

) "to kill" appears in an appropriate form corresponding to "he is killing": and it appears in an appropriate form "he is killed". The verb also has the passive form, "he is being killed" and "he was killed": and of course there are the usual participles, imperatives, infinitives, ete., both active and passive. Unlike English, the verb has a specific form for the reflexive (which would mean "to kill oneself", ie., to commit suicide), as well as an intensive form "to kill with violence" (ie. , to slaughter), and a causative form, "to have someone put to death". Thus in the matter of conjugations the Hebrew verb is well enough supplied but in the matter of tense, that is to say of time, it is limited to two forms only.
Clearly a single tense form has therefore to serve a much wider range of meanings than in English. Shades of difference about the timing in the past or the future do not seem to have been considered sufficiently important to justify special forms for either a pluperfect or a future tense. With respect to the latter, it has been suggested that, like other non-Indo-Europeans, they held the view that to speak of something which is to occur in the future is unrealistic since one cannot really be sure about it. Thus no specific verbal form was ever "invented" to cover it. It can be a promise or an intention, but as far as man is concerned it hardly constitutes a fact! With God, of course, it is quite different. When He says He will do something in the future, it IS a fact, and the certainty that it will be done led the Hebrew writer to use a perfect tense as if it were already a fait accomplis. Most divinely originated promises are treated thus, and the verb is written in a form which is referred to by grammarians as the "prophetic perfect".
Brief mention must be made of one odd feature of Hebrew syntax that has puzzled Indo-European readers since it seems an irrational procedure. It is this. When a sentence or a clause begins with the conjunction "and" (waw), the verb which immediately follows it and to which it is joined as a prefix, has its tense converted! A perfect is treated as an imperfect and an imperfect as a perfect. Thus the form for the English, "he is killed", if it happens to have the waw prefixed to it, is converted as though it were no longer a perfect and completed action but an imperfect and uncompleted action. "He killed" becomes "and he is killing" or "and he kills" or even "and he will kill": ie., any one of the uncompleted modes of expression. This is sometimes referred to by Hebrew scholars as the waw conversive" (ie. , waw which converts) and sometimes as the waw consecutive" (ie. , verb following or consequent to what precedes). We shall not have occasion to revert to this very much in the present study except in quoting Driver to show what it can NOT be made to mean.
Now evidently Hebrew writers did feel it desirable to have some means of distinguishing between the implications of a perfect and a pluperfect tense. If there is only one verbal form to cover both ideas, one necessarily has to adopt some "device" other than changing the verbal form. To convey the idea of a pluperfect as distinct from a perfect, Hebrew writers adopted the practice of deliberately changing the normal word order of the sentence. It is this with which we are primarily concerned in the present chapter.
The normal English sentence, in its simplest form, places the subject first, the verb next, and the object after the verb. In Latin the verb is placed at or near the end of the sentence, after both subject and object. In Hebrew the normal order is verb first, subject next, and object after that. Thus the order is:

In English: "The king appointed his ministers ...."
In Latin: "The king his ministers did appolnt .... "
In Hebrew: "He appointed, did the king, his ministers..."

English, of course, allows changes or departures from the normal in the interests of emphasis, contrast, euphemy, and by poetic licence. Hebrew is remarkably consistent and departs from the norm with rather less frequency than does the English, though it makes similar allowances in poetry and adopts rather similar rules for emphasis or contrast. In the latter case, it is customary to place the subject ahead of the verb in order to emphasize a change. "The king planned this but God determined otherwise" would be a situation in which the Hebrew writer would place the second subject, "God" ahead of its verb, the conjunction being read more appropriately as a disjunction than a conjunction in such a case. However even in this kind of situation the Hebrew would not always change the word order. It really depends upon how great the contrast is felt to be and whether it is desired to draw special attention to it or not. The reason for emphasizing this point is that the change of word order in the sentence, ie. , the placing of the subject ahead of the verb instead of the reverse, is a device which happens also to serve the purpose of converting a perfect into a pluperfect. Thus when the word order IS changed one has to determine for which cause this has been done, although in some cases it may have been done for both reasons.
The use of a pluperfect in a narrative has a special importance because it frequently indicates a hiatus. When the second sentence is not immediately connected with the one which precedes it, when the narrator is reverting to an event or a circumstance that in point of time is to be placed ahead of and distinct from the events recorded in the subsequent narrative, then It is customary to place the subject ahead of the verb and it is proper to render the verb as a pluperfect. It is not the verb form which is changed but the word order; and since there is disconnection or discontinuity intended by this device, it is usual to preface the sentence with waw-disjunctive rather than waw-conjunctive, which in an English translation would mean replacing the "and" with "but" or "however" or "meanwhile". For example, in such a sentence as, "The king came to the valley but the enemy had fled", the Hebrew would place the subject "enemy" ahead of the verb "fled", thus converting it to a pluperfect "had fled".
In a sentence of this kind, we have a situation in which both contrast and discontinuity appear in a single context. There is contrast because, while the king planned one course of action confidently looking for an engagement, the enemy had planned otherwise and had already left in order to avoid one! The situation is such that the departure of the enemy was already completed before the king arrived on the scene - and therefore the context calls for a pluperfect in the translation. The conjunction (waw) would properly be rendered a disjunctive "but" or "however" or some such word, and whether we look upon the inverted order as signffying contrast or discontinuity matters little, for both views are equally correct. The context will usually settle the matter in any case. In such a sentence as "The king planned this but the people planned otherwise", the inverted order would be used to signify contrast primarily, but even here a pluperfect might not be inappropriate: "but the people had planned otherwise". Thus, in the present issue, the word order of Gen. 1. 2 virtually demands a pluperfect if it is once allowed that the verb

cannot be taken as a simple copula. "But the earth had become...." is almost certainly the more appropriate rendering.
Now Driver writes at some length on this point. In discussing the usual idiom chosen by Hebrew writers for the purpose of expressing a pluperfect, he says:⁸⁵ "Their custom, when they wish to do this is to interpose the subject between the conjunction and the verb

. He then draws attention to Pusey's comments on the same subject and advises the reader to refer to the well-known Lectures on Daniel where Pusey writes at some length on the inverted word order which he says, "expresses a past time, anterior to what follows but in no way connected in time with what precedes".⁸⁶
Driver then gives the following series of illustrations from the Old Testament and comments upon each as indicated. I have not quoted his comments directly because his style is such as to demand that one has read the text which preceded. I have merely summarized his words. But I have done so without in any way changing his intended meaning.
Gen. 24. 62: "Now, Isaac had come from the way of the well Lahairoi; for he dwelt in the south country. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide: and he lifted up his eyes and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming. And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel....". The opening verb is to be read as a pluperfect, for here the writer wishes to combine two streams in his narrative; ie., he has (i) brought Rebekah to the termination of her journey, but (ii) he also desires to account for Isaac's presence at the same spot. In order to prepare the way for their meeting, he is obliged to go back and to detail what had taken place prior to the stage at which his narrative has arrived: he therefore starts afresh with the words

(Now - the subject (Isaac) the verb, in this order). The whole of verse 62 f. bears reference to Isaac and the two streams which are terminated respectively by

(verse 61) and

(verse 62) thus converge in verse 64 which says, "And she lifted up, did Rebekah, her eyes" (

).
So also in Gen. 31. 19: (

) "Now Laban had gone away to shear his sheep, when Rachel stole the images that were her father's". That is to say, the possibility of Rachel stealing the images was a direct consequence of the fact that Laban had gone away.
To a reader who is unfamiliar with Hebrew, these illustrations may be difficult to follow precisely, but Driver chose these examples, among others, simply becuase they do exactly illustrate the point he is making: namely, that the first clause is so constructed in the Hebrew as to convey a pluperfect sense whereas the second clause is not, and this construction is dependent entirely upon the interposition of the subject between the conjunction and the verb.
Driver then clarifies the issue somewhat by providing the reader with a number of biblical illustrations for which he gives the reference and a key word or two. I have set forth these references much more fully because probably not too many readers will take the time actually to look them up - and the force of his observations will thus largely be lost. I have added a note, where appropriate, relative to the Revised Standard Version renderings. Here is his list.
Gen. 20. 4: But Abimelech had not (aetually) come near her. ." The situation here is that Abraham, for fear of being put to death by Abimelech whom he suspected would want to take his beautiful wife Sarah, had posed as her brother instead of her husband. Accordingly, Abimelech had treated the supposed brother with extreme favour, and then taken Sarah off to his palace.... But, as it happens, he had a dream that came to warn him against his intended action and this dream occurred providentially before the King "had come near her". Hence the writer wishes the reader to know, since the narrative is written in retrospect, that Abimelech meanwhile had not yet actually abused Sarah - and so, as things turned out, had done her no harm. It will be noted that both the Authorized Version and the Revised Standard Version have translated the Hebrew as a pluperfect.
I Sam. 14.27: "Jonathan had not heard" that his father had given the order forbidding the eating of a certain honeycomb. So Jonathan disobeyed an order of whose existence he was ignorant. It will be noted in this instance that the Authorized Version does not observe the tense indicated by the Hebrew word order, whereas the Revised Standard Version has done so. It should be underscored that in all these, as well as in the following cases, the noun precedes the verb.
Num. 13. 22: "Now Hebron had been bullt seven years before Zoan in Egypt. The very sense of the narrative here would, one might suppose, guide the translators - even if the Hebrew text did not provide the clue. Nevertheless, for some reason neither the Authorized Version nor the Revised Standard Version translated this passage correctly. This fact should be sufficient indication, as we shall have reason to underscore later, that it is not enough in such matters to appeal to two such standard translations and merely depend upon how they dealt with the matter. Driver is right: this is quite clear from the very nature of the context. The Revised Standard Version scholars were not sufficiently careful - and the Authorized Version scholars may not even have been aware of the rule. Both mistranslated the text.
Josh. 6. 22: "But Joshua had said unto the two men .... "
Josh. 18. 1: ". . . . and the land had (already) been subdued before them". In Josh. 6. 22 the Authorized Version observed the rule, the Revised Standard Version did not. In Josh. 18. 1 nelther the Authorized Verslon nor the Revised Standard Version observed it.
I Sam. 9.15: "Now, the evening before Samuel came, the Lord had told Samuel...." The Authorized Version and the Revised Standard Version are correct.
I Sam. 25. 21: "Now David had said ..." So the Authorized Version and the Revised Standard Version.
I Sam. 2 8. 3: "Saul had put away all that had familiar spirits" Both the Revised Standard Version and the Authorized Version observed the pluperfect here.
II Sam. 18. 18: "Now Absalom, in his lifetime, had taken and reared up a pillar unto him self. . . . " Both versions agree.
I Ki. 14. 5: "Now the Lord had said unto Abijah...." Here neither the Authorized Version nor the Revised Standard Version (nor the Berkeley translation, I notice) have observed the correct sense.
I Ki. 22. 31: "But the king of Syria had commanded his thirty captains.... ". The Revised Standard Version agrees, but not the Authorized Version.
II Ki. 7.17: "Meanwhile the king had appointed the lord, on whose hand he leaned, to have charge of the gate.... " This circumstance was fatal to the king, hence it is a piece of information cast in retrospect by way of preparing the reader for what followed. The Revised Standard Version noted the word order, but the Authorized Version did not.
II Ki. 9. 16: "Meanwhile, Ahaziah, King of Judah, had come down to see Joram .... " Again, the Revised Standard Version agrees with, but the Authorized Version has not observed, the rule.
It will be noted that in all these instances the sentence is best introduced by the disjunctive particle in order to underscore the fact that there is no immediate connection with what precedes. Driver sometimes has "and" where I have substituted "but" or "now" or "meanwhile". The point needs no defending for the Hebrew waw (

) which stands at the beginning of each of these references has an almost unlimited number of meanings, * so that one may adopt the meaning most suitable to the sense without doing any injustice to the Hebrew original.
After concluding this list of illustrations, Driver adds that in each of these passages, by separating the verb from the conjunction and interposing the subject between the two, "the writer cuts the connexion with the immediately preceding narrative, and so suggests a pluperfect" (his emphasis).⁸⁷ This is a most significant comment when applied to Gen. 1. 1 and 1. 2.

* See Appendix XIV.

In A Resurvey of Hebrew Tenses., Frank R Blake⁸⁸ gives, as one of the variant meanings of the "perfect" tense form in Hebrew, "a past perfect (ie, , pluperfect)" denoting something more than merely a completed situation and "occurring normally only in multiple sentences". As an example, he refers to Gen. 31.33-34. It will be noted that the pluperfect element of the sentence, "but Rachel had taken .... ", describes a past act which is pictured as having occurred before Laban came to Rachells tent. By analogy, we should assume, therefore, that the pluperfect is used to describe something which occurred prior to the events which thereafter form the main thread of the story. It describes a circumstance ancillary to the rest of the narrative. Accordingly, it seems likely that Gen.1.2 is ancillary in the same sense to what follows in Gen.1.3ff.
We come now to an example, given by Driver,⁸⁹ of a special kind. He points out that in the normal course of events, when Ezekiel has some message from the Lord to declare to his people, he introduces his remarks with a kind of standard formula. This formula does not always involve the same words but it does involve the same sentence structure and word order. Thus In Ezek. 3.22 he says: "And the hand of the Lord (was) upon me...." (

) So also in8.l he says, "The hand of the Lord fell upon me ...." and in 14.2, "And it came to pass that the word of the Lord (was) unto me saying ...." So 20. 2 - exactly as in 14. 2; and so on.
But there is a clear difference when we come to Ezek. 33. 22 where the text has

: ie. , Now the hand of the Lord had been upon me in the evening". Strictly speaking,

should perhaps be rendered "unto me" rather than "upon me" but there are textual variations and either would be acceptable. The point is not important in any case, except that one must be as accurate as possible - which the Revised Standard Version has not been, as we shall see. Now Ezekiel's full sentence is: "Now the hand of the Lord had been upon me in the evening.... before he that had escaped came to me: and He had opened my mouth until he came to me in the morning; and my mouth was opened and I was no more dumb".
Thus the sentence opens with a word order which is similar to that of Gen. 1. 2, and the context shows clearly that the pluperfect is required in order to make the order of events quite obvious to the reader. And the Revised Standard Version is correct in so far as it renders the verb in the pluperfect, though for some curious reason (I can find no MS variant to justify it) the sentence has been rendered, "Now the WORD (

, not

) had come upon me the evening before....". The use of the substitute word is not serious, of course, for the meaning is clear enough. Berkeley's version has correctly translated this passage both as to the verbal form and the word "hand".
So Driver underscores the fact that in all these cases the word order is the only way in which Hebrew can indicate a pluperfect tense. He denies that they could have expressed it in any other way, for he points out that the normal word order (conjunctive - verb - subject) "which is recognized by all grammarians, cannot easily be reconciled with the idea of a pluperfect: for the construction inherent in the one seems to be just what is excluded by the other. Under these circumstances we shall searcely be wrong in hesitating to admit it without strong and clear exegetical necessity".⁹⁰ By which, in the context of his words, he means that the Hebrew has no way of expressing the pluperfect EXCEPT by an inversion of the word order; for the construction normally used implies a connection with what precedes, whereas the inverted word order is to show precisely the opposite - a disconnection. In all the illustrations provided, the intention of the writer is clearly to express what is properly conveyed only by a pluperfect in English.
If there can be shown to be some other way whereby a Hebrew writer can express the pluperfect, then the case for a pluperfect is weakened somewhat in Gen. 1. 2. For one could always argue that since the mere transposition of word order can, upon occasion, serve rather for emphasis upon a new subject than to express a pluperfect, the writer of Gen. 1. 2, had he really wished to express the pluperfect without any ambiguity whatever, would have chosen the alternative unambiguous method. Is there, therefore, anyother way in Hebrew of doing so ? The answer according to Driver is, No. With his usual moderation, Driver writes: ⁹¹

"It is a moot and delicate question how far the imperfect with waw-conversive denotes a pluperfect. There is, of course, no doubt that it may express a continuation of a pluperfect: forexample, Gen.31.34 'had taken and had placed them....' . But can the imperfect with waw-consecutive introduce it? Can it instead of conducting us as usual to a succeeding act, lead us back to one which is chronologically anterior ? The imperfect with waw-consecutive is.... certainly not the usual idiom chosen by Hebrew writers for the purpose of expressing a pluperfect: their usual habit, when they wish to do so, is to interpose the subject between the conjunction and the verb, which then lapses into the perfect, a form which we know allows scope for a pluperfect signifcation. "

Driver uses the word allows rather than demands (his emphasis throughout) because, as he has already pointed out, it may be simply a means of giving contrasting emphasis against what preceded.
Now Driver was well aware that quite a few Hebraists were in the habit of translating the simple waw-consecutive as though it were a pluperfect, a practice which is to be observed also in a number of cases in the Authorized Version. This he feels is unwarranted.⁹² He therefore proceeds to examine with care the supposed examples as set forth by Kalisch (Gen. 2.2; 26.18; Exod. 11. 1), by Ibn Ezra (Gen.4.23),by Keil(Gen.3.19,22),by Hitzig (Isa.8.3; 39.1; Jer. 3 9. 11; Jonah 2. 4). He also lists from Keil Gen. 2.19; 1 Ki. 7.13 and 9.14, and from Delitzsch Isa.37.5. Following this, certain other passages from Ibn Ezra are cited.
After giving due attention to all the references listed, ie. , those above and some others cited by Jewish grammarians, Driver concludes: "Such are the passages from which our conclusion has to be drawn". He sums up the situation by saying:⁹³

"All that a careful scholar like Mr. WrIght (Lectures on the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages,1890) can bring himself to admit with reference to the pluperfect sense of any other construction than that of word order inversion, is that while 'no clear instances can be cited in which it is distinctly so used', there are cases in which 'something like an approximation to that signification can be detected'. And it is rejected unreservedly by Bottcher, Quarry, Pusey, and Dillman. "

Moreover, he notes that in the Revised Version the wrongly used pluperfect renderings of the Authorized Version have normally been corrected.
It is reasonably certain, therefore, that word order inversion is intended to direct the reader's attention to this chronological disconnection. It will be observed only otherwise in the case of poetry and for contrast. Since Genesis is not written as poetry in our Massoretic text (whatever may be argued out of a desire to label it as some kind of poetic allegory), one is left with no alternative but that either the writer deliberately meant to separate the two verses and to give the sense of a pluperfect or that he meant to effect a clear contrast. And since the latter virtually always is indicated by the introduction of a new subject to the verb, a circumstance not applieable in this instance, we really have no alternative but to render the verb "had become".
Some of those whom Driver quotes to the contrary drew their support from Jewish grammarians. But on this point Driver writes:⁹⁴

"The authority of the Jewish grammarians, strange as it may seem to say so, must not be pressed; for although they have left works which mark an era In the development of Hebrew grammar, and are of inestimable value for purposes of exegesis, still their syntactical no less than their phonetic principles have always to be adopted with caution, or even to be rejected altogether. Their grammar is not the systematization of a living tradition, it is a reconstruction as much as that of Gesenius or Ewald or Philippi, but often unfortunately without a sound basis in logic or philology. And a question such as that now before us is just one upon which their judgment would be particularly liable to be at fault."

In summary , therefore, Driver's position is that if the usual word order "... expressive of the smooth and unbroken succession of events one after another is naturally abandoned as being alien to the relation that has now to be represented.... the subject of the circumstantial clause is placed first "(emphasis his).⁹⁵ Thus, we really have a pretty firm rule, an almost open and shut case. *
Contrary to my own view in this instance, Edward J. Young,⁹⁶ in his excellent little book on Genesis One, has expressed the opinion that this is an inverted word order because the author really did intend to lay emphasis on the subject "the earth". He believes, in fact, that this is a description of the earth as it came from the hand of the Creator, and that the writer wished to convey to the reader the idea that it was merely a condition pending further creative

* I have been able to find only one possible exception: Gen. 12. 1 and 4: "Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out.... So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him". In neither instance is the word order inverted. The Revised Standard Version seems, therefore, to have been guided correctly in their rendering of verse 1 as "Now the Lord said to Abram. ... ", but not in verse 4 which they render as the Authorized Version does. Neither Version has observed the rule in verse 4.

activity and on this account emphasis was used to draw the reader's particular attention to what was to follow. As he puts it, "Verse 2 states the condition of the earth as it was when created and until God began to form from it the present world". Young proposes that the idea of emphasis has been picked up by the Septuagint which has

, ie. , 'But the earth ...". However, of this word

, Thayer remarks that it is a "participle adversative, distinctive, disjunctive".⁹⁷ In a later paragraph he says, "It serves to make a transition to something new, .... the new addition is distinguished from and, as it were, opposed to what goes before". This is how the Septuagint seems to have understood the waw of verse 2 which is, unfortunately, in virtually all English Versions rendered improperly as a con-junctive.
If the heavens and the earth were created a Cosmos, and If the earth subsequently became a Chaos, we have just such a situation as demands the construction that appears in the Hebrew of verse 2. But Professor Young feels that God did not begin creation with a Cosmos but with a Chaos ("Chaos", that is, in the classical Greek sense of an "unformed" thing), a view which to my mind contradicts the basic meaning of the Hebrew word

(create) in verse 1.
It is possible, of course, to read the pluperfect of the verb "to be" as had been. Thus Gen. 1. 2 might have been rendered "But the earth had been a desolation. . . . etc". It. However, I think the implications of such a rendering would be of questionable validity. In his book The Semantics of Biblical Language, Professor Barr of the University of Edinburgh has stated that the verb

is used in Gen. 1. 2 because the intention of the writer is that "the earth was waste and is no longer so".⁹⁸ Certainly this could be a truth; but one wonders whether it is the truth the author had in mind when he penned Gen. 1. 2. And I think, personally, that it is equally doubtful whether he meant that "the earth had been waste - but was no longer so". Altogether, the least strain is placed upon the original by rendering the verb

simply as "had become", a rendering which accords well with the position it occupies in the sentence and with general usage of the verb elsewhere.
We have mentioned that Driver makes reference to Dr. Pusey, in connection with this question. Pusey,⁹⁹ in his Lectures on Daniel, wrote in several places on the subject. In his Introduction, for example, he says, "The insertion of the verb

has no force at all unless it be used to express what was the condition of the earth in the past, previous to the rest of the narrative, but in no connection at all with what Preceded". I have already quoted a passage very much like this one, but Pusey's reiteration of the principle involved serves here as an introduction to his much fuller treatment of the circumstances surrounding the use of the pluperfect in Hebrew which occurs somewhat later in his work on Daniel. Thus he says subsequently: ¹⁰⁰

"There are cases in which words arranged as they are here * (the subject being placed before the verb and joined with the preceding 'and') form a parenthesis. But then the context makes this quite clear."

He then says: "The idiom chiefly adopted in narrative to detach what follows from what precedes, is that which is here employed, viz: the placing of the subject first and then the past verb".¹⁰¹
Then he lists the following references as illustrations: Gen. 3. 1 which introduces what follows but is unconnected with the preceding; Gen. 3 6. 12; Jud. 11. 1; 1 Sam. 3. 1; II Ki. 3. 4; II Ki. 5. 1; II Ki. 7, 3; Num.32.1; Jud.20.38; Gen.41.56; Ezek.33.21; and I Ki.14.30. Since these references (with one exception) do not duplicate the series given in illustration of the same point by Driver, it will be worth looking at each one briefly.

Gen. 3. 1: "Now the serpent had become more subtle...."
Gen.36.12: "Meanwhile Timna had become concubine to Eliphaz"
Jud. 11. 1: "Meanwhile Jepthah had become a mighty man .... "
I Sam. 3. 1: I'Now the word of the Lord had become precious in those days ."
II Ki. 3. 4 "Now Mesha, King of Moab, had become a sheep master ...."
II Ki. 5. 1: "Now Naaman had become a great man".
II Ki. 7. 3: "Now four lepers had come to be there".
Num. 32. 1: "Now great wealth had, come to the children of Reuben"
Jud. 20. 38: " And an appointed sign had been (arranged) by the men of Israel " (a construction very similar to that of Gen. 1. 2).
Gen. 41. 56.: "Now the famine had come to be over the face of the whole earth" (repeating a fact, antecedent to the command of Pharaoh).
Ezek. 33. 21: "And it came to pass in the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, in the fifth day of the month, that one who had escaped out of Jerusalem came to me saying, The City Is smitten! Now the hand of the Lord had been upon me in the evening before that he that escaped had come, and had opened my mouth ...."
I Ki. 14.30: "Now there had been a war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam .... " (a construction very similar to that of Gen. 1. 2).

* He is referring to Gen. 1. 2.

In all these instances, as with those in Driver's list, the word order bears out the essential point being made - namely, that the verb should be translated as a pluperfect, lending strong support to the view that the best sense of the original Hebrew of Gen. 1. 2 is that which results from rendering as

"had become" rather than "was".
Thus, in summary, we have three situations involving the verb "to be" in English which are handled by Hebrew in different ways. The verb may be omitted: the verb may be included and placed at the head of the sentence - which is usual: and the verb may be included and placed after its subject.
In the first instance, the sense is purely copulative. In the second, the meaning is "to come to pass", "to happen", "to become" and "to be" in the sense of existing or living. In the third, the tense is pluperfect: "had been" or "had happened" or "had become".
The instances illustrating the first or simple copulative use are legion, every page of the English Bible revealing many straightforward examples, such as "Darkness (was) upon the face of the deep" or "And God saw that it (was)good" - in each of which the verb is omitted.
By way of illustrating the second, we may cite: "Cain became a tiller of the soil", "Eve became the mother of all living", "Lot's wife became a pillar of salt", "And it became light", "And it became a custom in Israel" etc. , etc.
Of the third usage, we may cite such passages as: "Now the serpent had become more subtle"; "Now Nineveh had become a great city"; "Now Nimrod had become a mighty hunter"; and, in my view of course, "Now the earth had become a ruin and a desolation". *

* In Appendix XV will be found further illustrations from the Old Testament which show that the use of an inverted word order to express the pluperfect is by no mans a rare circumstance but occurs quite frequently.

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