Vav – Some Hebrew Magic (1)

May Your favor also come to me, Lord, Your salvation according to Your ^[o]word; Psalm 119:41  NASB

Also come to me – Here’s the vav section of our acrostic.  Notice the first word of the first line –  וִֽיבֹאֻ֣נִי.  You’ll see the vav but you might not know how it works.  Let me explain.  Vav has two functions.  As a connector, it can mean “and, also, even, together with, or, even so, as well as, both, and etc.”  It has a very wide range.  But it also functions as a verbal prefix, that is, when it precedes a verb in the past tense, it switches the meaning to the future tense, and when it precedes a verb in the future tense, it changes the verb to the past.  This is called the vav-consecutive or vav-conversive.  We’ve seen it before.  It has some important implications.  The point to notice here is that the author must use the vav as the opening letter in each of the verses in this section in order to maintain the acrostic, and when he does so, any verb following a vav as the first word in the verse must be understood as a vav-conversive.  There is only one exception.  If the verb is a present tense conjugation, then the vav could act solely as a connector.  Otherwise, if the poet wants to communicate a future idea, his verbs will have to be past tense.  If he wants to communicate a past idea, his verbs will have to be future tense.  Now let’s see what happens.

In the first verse of this section, the vav is attached to the verb bôʾ (highlighted).

וִֽיבֹאֻ֣נִי חֲסָדֶ֣ךָ יְהֹוָ֑ה תְּ֜שׁוּעָֽתְךָ֗ כְּאִמְרָתֶֽךָ

וְאֶֽעֱנֶ֣ה חֹֽרְפִ֣י דָבָ֑ר כִּֽי־בָ֜טַחְתִּי בִּדְבָרֶֽךָ

וְֽאַל־תַּצֵּ֬ל מִפִּ֣י דְבַר־אֱמֶ֣ת עַד־מְאֹ֑ד כִּ֖י לְמִשְׁפָּטֶ֣ךָ יִחָֽלְתִּי

וְאֶשְׁמְרָ֖ה תוֹרָֽתְךָ֥ תָמִ֗יד לְע֘וֹלָ֥ם וָעֶֽד

וְאֶתְהַלְּכָ֥ה בָֽרְחָבָ֑ה כִּ֖י פִקֻּדֶ֣יךָ דָרָֽשְׁתִּי

וַֽאֲדַבְּרָ֣ה בְעֵֽדֹתֶיךָ נֶ֥גֶד מְלָכִ֗ים וְלֹ֣א אֵבֽוֹשׁ

וְאֶשְׁתַּֽעֲשַׁ֥ע בְּ֜מִצְו‍ֹתֶ֗יךָ אֲשֶׁ֣ר אָהָֽבְתִּי

וְאֶשָּׂ֚א כַפַּ֗י אֶל־מִ֖צְו‍ֹתֶיךָ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אָהָ֗בְתִּי וְאָשִׂ֥יחָה בְחֻקֶּֽיךָ

What can we say about this verb?  Well, the first thing is that it starts this verse.  The syntax has been rearranged in English, but the Hebrew begins with the verb boʾ with a prefixed vav.  The verb is an imperfect.  That means it is an unfinished action, something that continues.  The poet isn’t asking for a one-time dose of favor.  He’s asking for continuous “favors,” but “favors” in the English is very weak if not outright misleading.  The word is ḥâsādĕ, from ḥesed. In the English translation, the poet seems to be asking for continuous, plural ḥesed; not just a single act of  ḥesed but multiple acts.  There could hardly be a stronger relational word.  With its four senses packed into one, this is the God-only connecting word, perhaps the most important word in the entire Tanakh.  Books (literally) have been written about this one word.  Search my web site to find volumes on it (https://skipmoen.com/?s=ḥesed).  So, our verse begins with a grammatical connector and ends with a theological connector.

What about the verb itself?  What does bôʾ mean?  That’s also a nice little bit of Hebrew paradigm thinking.  You see, the root verb is bôʾ doesn’t mean “come.”  It means “go.”  But there are some real twists with this one.

First, boʾ is found with reference to YHWH as one who comes to his people. At the founding of Israel as a nation he came in thick clouds to Mount Sinai (Ex 19:9; 20:20). From Sinai he came with his ten thousands to fight for his people (Deut 33:2–5; Hab 3:3). In accordance with his promise that he would come to every place he chose to cause his name to be remembered (Ex 20:24), he came to Mount Zion with his ten thousands of holy ones (Ps 68:17 [H 18]).

Secondly, “coming” (boʾ) is associated with the promise-fulfillment motif. The verdict concerning the words (i.e. promises) of God by Joshua is that “all have come (boʾ) to pass” (Josh 23:14). John Bright observes that as best he can tell, on every occasion when boʾ is used of God’s word or purpose, it has the force of “come to pass,” “come true”

Thirdly, the word is used in connection with the coming “Messiah” who will bring salvation.

Finally, bôʾ is used with reference to the man who comes to the sanctuary in company with his community in order to pray and bring sacrifices (Deut 12:5; 31:11; II Sam 7:18; Isa 30:29; Jer 7:2, 10; Ps 5:7 [H 8]; 42:2 [H 3]).^[1]

With all of these examples, you might think that bôʾ should always be translated “come.”  But there are 2570 occurrences and most of them are about going.  Apparently in ancient Hebrew thought there is a close connection between coming and going.  What is that connection?  Well, it’s a matter of your point of view.  If I use the word “go,” I’m expressing the action from the point of view of the sender.  If I use the word “come,” I’m looking at the action from the point of view of the receiver.  Going is leaving something or someone.  Coming is arriving someplace or to someone.  But the physical movement effort is the same.  I still have to move from one place to another.  It just depends on how I view it.  So, boʾ can be both “go” or “come.”  Just figure out who’s talking.

Now consider the vav-conversive.  The verb is really a third person plural form with a vav prefix.  The translators have provided a jussive future tense (“may [it] come) when the vav-conversive should really be “[it] went [go]” or “[it] came [come].”  Something unusual is happening here.  The English Bible treats the vav in its sole role as a connective, not as a tense modifier.  Perhaps that makes more sense in English.  Alter translates this as “let Your favors befall me,” a bit closer to a past sense.  But not enough, it seems to me.  While we can’t get this to work in proper English grammar, the sense of it seems to be acknowledging the continuous, past ḥesed that went his way.  He wants what happened in the past to continue.  The NASB throws in “also” in order to account for the prefixed vav, but this seems to me to miss the power and the beauty here, because, you see, the verb is future but the vav makes it past.  So, in essence we have both past and future in the same word.  The kindnesses of God stretch from past to future, all rolled into one verb.

The Hebrew conjugation of bôʾ shows only two occurrences where the conjugated verb begins with a yod: the third person singular future tense and the third person plural future tense.  Since several consonants are dropped in the construction of “come to me,” we look to the grammatical construct of the noun, the subject of this sentence.  That noun is ḥâsādĕ with the added indirect object kā.  In other words, a plural noun plus “to me.”  So, we need a plural verb, and יָבוֹאוּ fits the bill.[2]  But with a vav-conversive, this should be translated as past tense, not future; not a wished-for experience but one that has already occurred.  In fact, every verb in this section follows the same pattern: a future tense with a vav-conversive making it a past tense.

What does this mean?  Well, the English version implies that the psalmist is in the midst of present emotional angst.  He’s hoping for God’s relief.  He’s wishing for God’s involvement. But such a translation is more about the Western psychological paradigm than it is about the Hebrew poet’s world.  He’s not hoping or waiting for God to do something in the future.  He’s saying that God has already done something, and on that basis he confidently trusts God.  In fact, God has done multiple acts of ḥesed in the past, so he relies on that history.  History matters.  What God did is a good measure of what He will do.

This changes the entire picture.  The sections of aleph, bet, gimel, and hey have all been declarations of praise.  All past tenses.  All actions already done.  If we follow the English version, we are now expected to imagine that this author suddenly switches gears.  Now, in the vav section, he falters.  He pleads for God’s intervention in order to remain observant.  His confidence is shattered and in desperate need of repair.  I’m suggesting that none of this represents the actual text, a text which continues lauding God’s past actions as the basis for future confidence.  And as we shall see, virtually every vav verse will have to be re-read.

Topical Index: ḥesed, favor, vav-conversive, boʾ, come, go, Psalm 119:41

^[1] Martens, E. A. (1999). 212 בּוֹא. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 95). Moody Press.

[2] The future form of the verb is found in Psalm 119:77 – yebō’ û, translated as a future without the prefixed vav.