The name ‘tenses’ as applied to Hebrew verbs is misleading. The so-called Hebrew ‘tenses’ do not express the time but merely the state of an action. Indeed were it not for the confusion that would arise through the application of the term ‘state’ to both nouns and verbs,’states’ would be a far better designation than ‘tenses.’ It must always be borne in mind that it is impossible to translate a Hebrew verb into English without employing a limitation (viz. of time) which is entirely absent in the Hebrew. The ancient Hebrews never thought of an action as past, present, or future, but simply as perfect, i.e. complete, or imperfect, i.e. as in course of development. When we say that a certain Hebrew tense corresponds to a Perfect, Pluperfect, or Future in English, we do not mean that the Hebrews thought of it as Perfect, Pluperfect, or Future, but merely that it must be so translated in English. The time of an action the Hebrews did not attempt to express by any verbal form.
In Hebrew, verbs are generally divided into three main tenses:
- Past tense (זמן עבר): This tense is used to describe actions that have already happened. It is typically formed by adding specific endings to the verb root based on the subject (e.g., אני כתבתי — I wrote, אתה כתבת — you wrote).
- Present tense (זמן הווה): Hebrew present tense is somewhat unique because it reflects not only the present but also habitual actions. Verbs are inflected based on gender and number rather than person (e.g., אני כותב/כותבת — I am writing (male/female), הם כותבים — they are writing).
- Future tense (זמן עתיד): This tense is used to describe actions that will happen. The verb is modified by adding prefixes to the root, which vary according to the subject (e.g., אני אכתוב — I will write, הוא יכתוב — he will write).
In addition to these, Hebrew uses imperative forms for commands and there is a participle form that can sometimes act similarly to the present tense or be used in compound verb constructions.
