Lesson 2 | Qal Imperfect
[3] In Progress
Do you remember how biblical Hebrew aspect is defined?
perfect = viewed as complete
imperfect = viewed as in progress
There’s nothing new in this step, but we wanted to remind you about aspect, since we introduced it way back in the middle of Hebrew II. As we explained on this step, the two basic aspects of Hebrew verbs are perfect and imperfect. With the perfect aspect, the author is viewing the action as a completed whole, whereas the imperfect aspect sees the action as in progress.
Hence the imperfect aspect is most often used to represent present or future actions. It is also commonly used to represent the subjunctive (“may you ____”), contingency (“if you ____, …”), customary actions (“you always ____”), or permission (“you may ____”).
Thus, we translate imperfects by giving great attention to the context, and seek to think about the aspect more than the inferred tense—just as we discussed with perfect verbs.