The Use of Hayah in Genesis, Joshua, Job, two Psalms, and Zechariah

APPENDIX IV (Reference: p.45)

In order to examine the evidence in situ as it were, a study was made of the context of all occurrences of the verb "to be" which are to be found in the English of the Authorized Version of the Old Testament in the following books: Genesis, Joshua, Job, two Psalms, and Zechariah. Genesis was chosen for obvious reasons; Joshua, because it represented a historical book of a later period; the book of Job, because of its rather unique dramatic form; Zechariah, a minor prophet, because it provided a sample of prophetic literature towards the end of Old Testament times; and two Psalms because they were representative of Hebrew poetry.
The information thus derived is set forth in a more or less tabular form for each book as a separate entity, and is then summarized as a whole. What emerges is that a great deal of what has been commonly assumed regarding the use and the meanings of the Hebrew verb

has been somewhat imprecise - even when discussed by the very best authorities, such as S. R. Driver. This, in turn, has been repeated by secondary authorities ("quoters" and "quoters of quotes") with even less precision! The end result is that the original authorities have been credited at times with views on the subject which, though in a sense they could be considered as logical extensions of their stated views, are now sufficiently inaccurate that even the originators would probably not have approved of them. It is hoped that although the kind of information presented in this Appendix is dry and uninspiring, it will nevertheless contribute something towards a re-statement of the whole matter so that those who are concerned with the issue may be better guided by at least a knowledge of what is clearly not true.
In this study, all occurrences of the verb "to be" in any of its various forms in English (be, am, are., was., will be,etc.) were examined, whether represented in the original Hebrew by some form of the verb (and therefore set in bold type in the Authorized Version), or merely inserted by the translators to complete the English sentence structure (and therefore set in italics). Thus bold face type as well as italics are included in the total count, each sub-total being properly identified as to its category.
The following is what was observed. In the whole of Genesis, the verb "to be" appears 832 times according to my count. Of these , it is inserted by the translators, where so required in English though not represented in the original Hebrew, a total of 626 cases. It is found set in bold type, indicating the presence of

in the original, in 206 cases. From this one may see that the simple copulative sense of am, is, were, shall be, etc. , is not in the majority of cases represented in the Hebrew whether the tense is past, present, or future. The verb

was felt to be necessary in only 25% of the contexts (206 out of a total of 832) where English seems to demand it. This might be presumptive evidence that the verly is as a rule employed in a Hebrew sentence only when the meaning is something more than merely copulative.
Most authorities today admit this but assert at the same time that the general rule applies only in cases where the tense is present. When the tense is past or future, it is usually held that the verb is required even where the usage is copulative. For this reason, it is agreed that in Gen. 1. 2 the verb

had to be employed because the tense was past, and that the correct rendering is therefore the simple "was".
The basis of this argument seems logical enough. Unless the verb is expressed in Hebrew one cannot distinguish between such statements as "the man was good", , "the man is good", and "the man will be good", since all three would appear in Hebrew without distinction simply as "the man - good"

with no further guidance to the reader as to whether the situation was past, present, or future.
But in point of fact, Hebrew writers do not seem to have felt any such need to be more explicit since of the total number of cases where the verb is unexpressed, 626 in all, some 184 cases or 30% clearly apply to a past or future situation. Of this number, only 15 are future.
Consider, then, these 15 future cases in which the verb is unexpressed. The number is surprisingly small when compared with the number of references to past situations, but this is really to be expected. Future events are much more likely to be looked forward to as involving a change from present circumstance and since Hebrew writers seem to have consistently employed the verb

whenever a change of circumstance or of status is involved, it would be a much less common thing to run across a future that did NOT require the verb to be expressed. It is obvious that in such as sentence as, "We are poor but we shall be rich", a change is indicated which would require that the verb normally be expressed: but if the sentence happened to read, "We are poor and always will be poor", signifying no change in the present situation, the verb would not normally be expressed. Such a situation as this would then perhaps best be translated by the compound phrase, 'We shall continue to be poor". Life being as it is, most future circumstances are hopefully viewed as a change from the present rather than a continuance of it; and indeed most future references are to a change. This fact is reflected in Genesis where, out of a total of 88 references to the future in the English of the Authorized Version, the original expresses the verb (to indicate such a change) in 73

three-quarters of them. And of the other quarter, the fifteen already referred to, the majority also indicate a change , in spite of the omission of the verb. This appears to be a contradiction of the general rule, but an examination of them shows that there is another qualifying factor in the application of the rule which is important and logical. These 15 occurrences are as follows: Gen. 3. 16; 4. 7; 6. 15; 16. 12; 17. 15; 29. 15; 43. 23; 41. 31; 46.6; and 49.8, 10, 12, 13 (twice) and 20.
The passage in Gen. 46. 6 is clearly one involving no change - past, present, and future all being bleakly uniform: "For these two years the failure has been in the land: and yet there are five years in which there shall be neither ploughing nor harvest". All the others involve a prospective change in one form or another in spite of the absence of the verb. But the reason for the absence of

where it would otherwise be expected is really clear enough. , each situation is self-explanatory because of an associated sentence or clause which enables one to see unequivocally what the writer has in mind. The structure of the closely linked sentences is such that one cannot read the text at all without being made positively aware that a change is in view. This awareness stems from the existence of either contrast or repetition in sentence structure. Contrast is self-evident in Gen. 17.15 where Abraham is told, "Thou shalt not call her name Sarai but Sarah shall be her name". Repetition is evident in such a passage as Gen. 16. 12 where the record reads, "He will become a wild man and his hand shall be against every man". So unnecessary is the verb in the second clause that the meaning would (even in English) be perfectly obvious if it were omitted and read merely as, "He will become a wild man with his hand against every one". A change of circumstance or metaphor is involved in most of these 15 passages, but the change is made abundantly clear by the very structure of the sentence and no special device's needed to insure the reader's understanding.
An excellent example of the presence and absence of the verb

as appropriate to the requirement of the writer's meaning may be found in Gen. 34. 15: "If ye will become as we are ....", which in the original is:

. The first verb proposes a change and must therefore be expressed: the second is a static situation (ie. , strictly copulative) and is therefore unexpressed in Hebrew.
The reason for labouring the point is that we so continuously and so unconsciously employ similar sentence structures with subtle yet important distinctive meanings that we are not in the habit of analyzing them. Only by insisting on attention to them can one gain a hearing at all! And as soon as one has convinced the reader that there is a real distinction, one at once has to account for apparent exceptions! After all, the employment or the omission of the verb

is merely a literary device to help the reader - not an austere law threatening the writer with some penalty (other than being misunderstood!) if he fails to obey it. If the meaning which is served by the literary device has been made quite clear in some other way or by something already said, there is obviously no need to adopt the device and slavishly insist on expressing the verb. It is in order to bring out this point that I have entered into this uninspiring but rather necessary excursus. I am keenly aware that a critic may otherwise accuse me of being superficial by the very simple expedient of pointing to exceptions without telling his readers how they might be more exceptional in appearance than in fact. So I am anxious to avoid being superficial - even if my conclusions should ultimately turn out to be quite wrong. The prime object is to elucidate the issue, an issue that is complex and has been confused by inadequate appraisal of the evidence.
Let me therefore recapitulate by stating the case thus, as I see the evidence: When there is no change in view the verb is never required - whether in the past tense, the present tense, or the future. Where a change is involved, it is required unless the fact of the altered circumstance has already been made abundantly self-evident by some other means. Thus: no change no verb. Some change - some form of the verb expressed, or the change is clearly indicated to the reader by some other means. Where the verb is expressed in the past or future tense, a change is almost certainly in view. The absence of the verb may or may not in itself tell the whole story but the presence of the verb (unless it has one of its rather special meanings) always indicates that a change has occurred, or is occurring, or will occur in the situation in the future. The verb

is, in such a case, best rendered into English by some such word as became or had become (for the past), becomes or is becoming (for the present), and will become (for the future). The word "become" is not always the best English word to use but the meaning of it seems most closely to represent the original. Such a phrase as, "it came to be" (which is, after all, merely an alternative of "it be-came") , is familiar and acceptable; as is, "it shall come to pass" (which, again, is merely an alternative for "it shall come to be" or, more simply, "it shall be-come"). I believe that the vast majority of occurrences of the verb

when employed in its more basic meaning can sensibly be rendered by some equivalent of the English word "become". In the future tense this fact can readily be verified by reference to its 73 occurrences, many of which are listed in Appendix V. In the present tense, there are but 3 occurrences in Genesis, according to my count, namely, Gen. 32. 10, and 42. 31, 36. In the first, "became" is quite appropriate: "Now I am become two bands". In the second, the meaning is less precise: the Authorized Version reads, "We are no spies", a statement which may mean, "We have not come as spies", since - were it merely copulative - it would (by almost universal agreement) not require the expression of the verb, least of all since it is in the present tense. The third case (verse 36) is clear enough since the speaker is complaining of a change in his fortunes because, suddenly, "all things have come to be" against him. The omission of the verb would have conveyed the meaning that things had atways been against him.
In Genesis, the verb appears 60 times in the past or future tense in the well known English rendering, "It came to pass" or "it shall come to pass", both of which clearly describe a new situation or - to use a modern term, a "happening". Since both phrases could be equally well served by substituting the word "be" for "pass", they would quite appropriately be read as, "it came to be that.... " or "it shall come to be that...." and the word "be-came" or "be-come" therefore once more appears as a proper rendering of the verb

. As already noted, in 17 passages in the Authorized Version of Genesis the verb is in fact translated "become" or "became".
Besides these, there are some 63 passages in Genesis in which the verb is expressed, appearing in the Authorized Version in the form "was" or "were". These occurrences can all be rendered, and indeed should be rendered (to be more precise), by some English verbal phrase which is more than a mere copulative. In many cases it is best rendered "became" or "had become" and such a rendering does more justice to the sense of the original. But there are a number of interesting and rather special meanings of the verb

which are curious in that they are strangely encompassed by some English phrase employing the word "come". This strikes me as a noteworthy circumstance. The following passages include some chosen quite randomly from Joshua, a book which - as I have stated previously - was also analyzed for the purposes of this chapter.
In Josh. 15. 4, 7, 11; 16. 3, 8; and 18. 12 (twice), 14, and 19, the allotted territories of the various tribes are being defined. The verb

is used when the boundaries are stated. The English renderings are varied but all mean "reached to" or "terminated at". The verb could have been rendered "came to", just as we may say "my property comes to here", indicating with a marker where the line actually falls. In Genesis the phrase, "and it came to pass", belongs in this class, of course. It is found throughout Genesis 1 in verses 7, 9, 11, 15, 24, and 30, in all of which the meaning is clearly "and it became so". A beautiful illustration of this is to be found in Psa.33.9 where the Hebrew reads:

which in the Authorized Version is rendered, "For He spake and it was done ", but actually should read, "For He spake and it beccone", ie., "came to be". The word "done" is quite properly printed in italics in the English translation since it is not represented in the Hebrew, but it was felt necessary to complete the sense. Such would be the case if one renders

as "and it was". But the word done proves unnecessary when the sentence is correctly rendered, a circumstance which confirms the non-copulative meaning of the verb

. Evidently the Septuagint translators did not make the mistake that the English translators did, for they rendered it thus:

ie. , "For He spoke, and it became".
When Lot's wife became a pillar of salt, we have a third class. A fourth class includes statements of simple arithmetic, as in Josh. 21. 40, "So all the cities.... of the Levites were (ie. , came to).... 12 cities".
Thus we have "came to", ie. , reached; "came to pass", ie. , transpired; "be-came", ie. , turned into; "came to", ie. , added up to; and "came", ie. , arrived (Job 1. 13 and 2. 1). I am not by these remarks seeking to prove any point in particular but merely trying to show how the English word "came" can be played upon so as to mean some surprisingly different things! And the fact is that the Hebrew word

is remarkably similar in many respects to the extension of the English word "come", as shown in Appendix VI.
In summary, a future situation in which no change is in view, a future which is merely a guarantee of the continuance of the present, does not require the verb

to be expressed: nor does the simple English copulative "to be" in any of its present tense forms require the verb to be expressed either. Similarly, a past which is viewed as a static situation, a past which "always was" or "was at the time", a past which is merely referred to by the writer as a point of reference or as a starting point for his narrative, a past which though it no longer holds true did not at the time involve some altered situation, such a past is expressed without the use of any part of the verb

. A man whose name (was) so-and-so (Gen. 10. 25, etc.), a divinely appointed situation which (was) good (Gen. 1. 10, 21, etc.), one city which (was) greater than another (Josh. 10. 2), a place that (was) wicked, a man who (was) such-and-such an age,.... all these involve no implied change in circumstance leading up to the situation described. They are simple statements of fact at the time. The verb

is uniformly omitted.
But if the man became of such-and-such an age before God dealt with him in some special way, then the situation is viewed quite differently and the verb

must normally be expressed unless the eventuality can be otherwise indicated to the reader. Thus, for example, the verb is required in such a sentence as, "And when Abram became 90 years old", then the Lord appeared to him and told him that his name was now to be changed because he was to become a father of many nations (Gen. 17. 1-4). Or, as another example, "(Jabal) became the father of such as dwell in tents... and his brother's name (was) Jubal" (Gen.4.20, 21). The first part of the sentence involves a change for he was not a father at all until he reached maturity, so the verb

being expressed in the original is more precisely rendered into English as "became"; but the second part of the sentence does not involve any change, being merely an observation of a fact - and the verb

is accordingly unexpressed in the original.
Undoubtedly, it will be possible to find real or apparent exceptions here and there, but certainly the normal practice is not to express the verb

at all where the meaning is simply copulative, whether in the past, present, or future tense. And, equally, the introduction of the verb

means either that a change has taken place leading to the then situation, or is taking place, or will take place, or that the verb is being used by the writer (usually in conjunction with some qualifying preposition such as in, at, with, within, etc.) to give a special sense. In no such case is it merely copulative. When expressed, it has such meanings as "became" (Gen. 19. 26); "accompanied" (Josh. 1. 5); "added up to (totalled)" (Josh. 21.40); , "existed" (Josh. 17.1,2, etc.); "happened" (for a beautiful illustration, see Gen.41.13, "And it came to pass as he interpreted to us, so it happened":

...

); "reached to" or "from" (Josh. 18.12 has both usages); I 'went about daily' I (ie. , actively, not statically - as in Gen. 2. 25); "belong to" (Josh. 14. 9; 17. 18; and Job 42. 12); or even "lay within" (as in Josh. 19. 1). In Gen. 39. 2 three of these meanings appear in one verse! Thus the text reads, "It came to pass..... he became a prosperous man.........he lived daily in his master's house". Other special meanings seem often to involve the English word "fall", as in the phrase, "It befell" or "It fell out that". This, too, is striking, for in French also there is some evidence of the same kind of association of ideas where, for example, the word devenir may mean both "to befall" or "happen" as well as "to become", the venir in the word, of course, being the English "come". As already noted, some scholars believe that the Hebrew

is related to a more primitive root meaning "to fall".
As a corollary of the statement made earlier to the effect that the verb

implies really an active situation rather than a static one, it is also to be observed that the word "became" should not be substituted for the English "was" where the verb

is unexpressed in the original. To make this substitution conveys a meaning to the text which is either clearly not the writer Is intention; or it simply makes nonsense. Thus where Genesis 1 has the recurrent phrase, "and it was good", one cannot sensibly substitute became for was and read it as "and it became good". What God creates or what He instantly commands into being does not as a process "become" good. It is good. It may, of course, become something, viewed as an event in such a recurrent phrase as, "and it was so". But here the verb is always expressed in the original - and with perfect propriety. But once in being, the "goodness" of the thing so created is inherent: it is thereafter copulatively "good". The difference in the original of these two often repeated phrases in Genesis 1 is brought out by the Authorized Version practice of using bold face or italics as the original demands. And as I have already observed, for this very reason this Version has much to commend it to the English reader over other versions. Only upon one or two occasions does the Authorized Version seem to make a mistake in its use of type. One such instance is Gen. 40. 16 which should have read, "The interpretation (was) good", rather than, "was good", since the original omits the verb. It is reasonable to conclude, therefore, from these facts, first of all, that the idea of "becoming" must be expressed - unlike the mere copula which will not be: and secondly, that there is no other way in which it can be expressed in Hebrew.
Let us consider briefly the evidence on these points to be derived from a study of the text of Joshua, Job, Psa. 22 and 68, and Zechariah.

Joshua.

A comparison of Joshua with Genesis presents essentially the same kind of picture in the matter of proportional usage and specialized meanings. Genesis is, of course, longer than Joshua (1445 verses as against 658) and thus the grand totals differ accordingly, but the frequency is of the same order.
In the English of the Authorized Version, the verb "to be" occurs 269 times in all. Of these, 182 are not represented by any verb in the original. In 87 cases, the verb

appears in the Hebrew, these being of course set in bold type in the English. Of these, 38 have been or should (in the interests of consistency) have been rendered . "it came to pass" or "it shall come to pass" (both of which involve a process of be coming) , and 13 might very properly have been rendered "come to be", "become" , "became", "had become", or "It will become" [namely, Josh.3.4 (come to be); 4.6,7; 9.5 (pluperfect); 14.4,9 (future); 15.1; 17.8 (future); 20.3; 23.13; 23.27 (twice); and 24. 32]. The balance have specialized meanings , such as "being with" in the sense of accompanying (Josh. 1. 17; 3.7; etc.), or "added up to" (as in Josh. 21.40), or "were situated in" (as in Josh.8.22; 18.14; 19.1,14; etc.), or "reached from" (as in Josh. 13. 16) or "reached to" (Josh. 13. 23). None of these are copulative usages. Nor are the several remaining examples copulative, for in these a future event is described which differs from the then present circumstance; as for example in Josh. 20.6: "until he stand before the congregation for judgment, and until the death of the high priest that shall be in those days". To my knowledge, only one possible exception is observable in which the verb

has the appearance of having been used unnecessarily in a sense, and this is Josh. 10. 14 which reads, "And there was no day like that, before it or after it". Perhaps even this is not really exceptional since, in a sense, the use is existential.
Certainly, whatever else may be said for the text of Joshua, it does not lend support to the idea that the verb

has normally a copulative sense of "to be".

Job.

The Book of Job is slightly different in an interesting way that I think must be related to the dramatic form of the narrative. It is interesting because the historic present is more frequently used and because in certain circumstances when the verb

would normally have been employed, it has actually been omitted. The object, by shortening the sentence, is perhaps to heighten the sense of urgency.
In the Book of Job according to the Authorized Version, a total of 270 occurrences of some part of the verb "to be" will be found, with only 26 (or 10% of them) set in bold type indicating the verb

in the original. The omissions which therefore number 244 are represented in the English text by such words as are, was, will be, etc. The overwhelming majority of these are simply copulative. There are, as already stated, a few special cases where the omission is probably for dramatic effect. These are to be found occurring in such verbal phrases as "(were) eating" (Job 1. 13, 18), "(was) yet speaking (Job 1. 16, 17, 18). This is a not uncommon device in Hebrew literature, the participle of the verb (here "eating" and "speaking") being used sometimes with

* and sometimes without it, instead of the simple imperfect normal to an English sentence. It is also apparent that the writer has avoided to a large extent the use of the past tense, for of all the italicized verbal forms of "to be" which occur in the Authorized Version text of Job, only 8% are past compared with 27% in the text of Genesis. It seems as though, in the mind of the translators at least if not in the mind of the original writer, the use of the "historic present" was felt to be more appropriate to the narrative form employed.
The very first verse is a good illustration of three different meanings attached to the sense of "being". The text reads, "There was a man.... whose name (was) Job.... and it happens that that man was perfect.... " The first "was" clearly means "lived", the verb being used in its existential sense; the second is the simple copulative and is therefore omitted in Hebrew; and the third is used in the historic sense, "and it came to pass.... " Here, then, we find a strictly copulative sentence set forth in away which by the omission of the verb

makes clear that the writer's meaning is quite distinct from that of the two other occurrences of the verb in the same passage.

* For exampLe, see: Gen. 4.17; 37.2; Jud. 16. 21; I Sam. 2.11; and many others. And see further, Appendix II.

The existential use of

is to be observed in such a passage as Job 16.12: "1 lived at ease", whichhasbeen rendered in the Author- ized Version as, "I was at ease". The sense of "becoming" is to be observed in such a passage as Job 17. 6 which in the Scofield edition of the Authorized Version reads: "He hath made me also a by-word of the people; and I was (

) as one before whom men spit". It seems to me that the speaker is trying to indicate that a drastic change in his situation has now taken place with respect to his previous status in the community. And therefore, in the interest of greater precision, I suggest that the verb should be rendered "I am become as one who......", though admittedly by making this change I am robbing my opponents of an example (if they should choose to use it) of a supposed copulative occurrence of the verb

. However, since the writer of Job has not once in the other 240 or so instances of a purely copulative situation employed any part of the verb

, we have good reason to suppose that he employed it here because he intended the meaning to be something other than a mere copula.
The dramatic style of the writer is revealed by the not infrequent omission of the verb

in connection with various prepositions (

etc.) where normally one would expect it. Such a case is Job 29.5 where the verb is omitted, though in the English it is followed by "with": "When the Almighty (was) yet with me". This maybe contrasted with the more normal (ie. , prosaic) construction indicated for the same phrase in Josh. 1. 5, 17 (twice); 2. 19; 3. 7 (twice); 6. 2 7; and 7. 12. Here, too, we seem to have the shortened sentence structure.
Besides Job 17.6 already referred to, there are a number of other occurrences where the text might better have been rendered using the verbal form "became", "become", etc. , though the Authorized Version has not done so. In all of these, needless to say, the verb

appears in the original. I have in mind such passages as the following, all of which indicate a real change in the situation:

10.19: "I should have become as though I had not been" (ie. ,never existed).
11.17: "Thou shalt become as the morning".
12.4: "I am become as one mocked by his neighbour".
16.8: "Wrinkles - which become a witness against me".
24.14: "and in the night becomes a thief".
30.9: "And now I have become their song, yea, I have become their by-word".
30.29: "I have become a brother to jackals".

Essentially the same picture emerges from Job as from Joshua and Genesis in the matter of grammar and syntax except for the already noted much less frequent use of the past tense of the verb

which is replaced by a historic present for effect. In Genesis the verb appears 130 times in the past tense, in Job only 17 times: in Genesis all occurrences of

(regardless of tense) total 206 as compared with only 26 in Job. Thus the style of Job would certainly seem to have been deliberately compressed - almost staccato at times.

Psalms.

Two Psalms were chosen, 22 and 68, solely on account of their convenient length, and for statistical analysis they have been treated as one. Perhaps in the very nature of the case, the language of the Psalms seems to be written very much in the present tense and references to the past are comparatively few. In fact, the Hebrew verb is not used once in a past or a future reference at all in either of these Psalms. In the English there are 27 occurrences where some part of the verb "to be" is supplied by the translators, of which 22 are in the present tense. Since these are undoubtedly correctly supplied as to tense, and since the data for all the Psalms combined indicates the same general pattern (31 in italics in past tense, 524 in present tense , and 34 in future tense), there is no doubt that this is a feature of Hebrew psalmody. Which is to say, that the verb

is not felt to be necessary in the vast majority of cases, actually appearing only as one simple case in these two Psalms, and in this one instance (Psa. 22. 19) with what is probably the existential meaning. Since there are in all some 31 references to the past and 34 to the future which have not demanded the introduction of the verb

in the original, the Psalms as a whole would appear to confirm the general rule that

is not required when it functions as a simple copula, regardless of the tense.

Zechariah.

In Zechariah, there is a significant difference from the Psalms, for the whole bent of the text is towards the future and out of a total of 42 occurences of the verb

, 37 or 88% are references to the future, 4 are references to the past and only 1 is a reference to the present. It seems likely that this general pattern is true of most of the prophetic books or passages of Scripture, in view of the fact that the words look forward to a situation yet to come which will be different from things as they now are. This kind of change in Hebrew literature, where the verb "to be" is involved, appears regularly to require the use of the verb

, and in a very large number of cases the English has rendered the sentence, "and it shall come to pass .... " As already indicated, this could quite as properly be written, "It shall come to be .... ", ie., "It shall be-come ... " *
The Table on page 146 (see on this page) is included merely to summarize the data reported upon in this Section. It should be underscored that these numbers represent my own counting, a count usually undertaken during evenings after a full day's work and therefore not pretending to be infallible though certainly not grossly in error. Where the totals do not tally (as in the case of Job's Italics total, for example), the reason is that there were a few occurrences of the verb "to be" in English which could not be classified among the others, being part of some verbal clause such as "were eating", etc. The percentage figures given represent the proportion of the appropriate total which each category of entries has within each book. The figures for Psalm 22 and 68 have been combined.
Percentages are calculated to the nearest whole percent.
In Genesis, Joshua , and Zechariah, the verb is omitted from twice to three times as frequently as it is employed (206/626: 87/182: and 42/74). In Job the verb is omitted approximately ten times as often as it is employed, and in the Psalms, twenty-seven times as often. It is clear that the copulative use in its simple form is exceedingly rare compared with what the English sentence demands.

* It is hard to say to what extent the Authorized Verion has been responsible for determining the sense which we continue to attach to some words, but it may be worth noting that according to the Oxford English Dictionary (Vol. 1, p. 715 b, published in 12 volumes by the Clarendon Press, 1933) under the article on the word BE: "(This verb) was in Old English a distinct verb.... meaning 'become', 'come to be', and thus serving as a future tense to am and was, By the beginning of the 13th c. the Infinitive and ParticipLe, Imperative and Present Subjunctive of am and was, became successively obsolete, the corresponding parts of BE taking their place so that the whole verb am and was and be is now commonly called from its infinitive the verb 'to be'." In other words, even the verb "to be" once really meant "to become".

Tabulation of the data from the study of the five books noted.

Book	Italics				Bold face				Grand totals
Gen.	Past	Pres.	Fut.	Total	Past	Pres.	Fut.	Total	Grand totals
Gen.	169=27%	442=70%	15=3%	626	130=63%	3=2%	73=35%	206	832
Josh.	72=40%	7=4%	7=4%	182	57=66%	5=5%	25=29%	87	269
Job	20=8%	15=85%	15=7%	244	17=65%	7=27%	2=8%	26	270
Psa 22, 68	3=1%	2=17%	2=17%	27	0	1=100%	0	1	28
Zech.	9=12%	15=21%	15=21%	74	4=10%	1=2%	37=88%	42	116

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