The Hebrew consecutive preterite (or wayyiqtol) functions as the backbone of Hebrew narrative. This verbal form stands in clause-initial position and allows the narrator to articulate a continuous chain of perfective actions and/or situations that drive the storyline forward. Other verbal forms serve complementary roles within the consecutive framework. The wǝqatal offers a clause initial imperfective verbal form as a counterpart to the consecutive preterite, which can also function in various non-indicative moods. The two non-clause initial verbal forms—the suffix conjugation (or qatal) for perfective aspect, and the prefix conjugation (or yiqtol) for imperfective aspect—fill out the system with perfective and imperfective forms that can be used when other clause constituents precede the verb (negative לֹא, adverbs, relative אֲשֶׁר, causal כִּי or other conjunctives, disjunctive fronted nominal, etc.).
Hebrew poetry, however, exhibits an entirely different literary structure, with individual poems arranged in symmetrical pairs of poetic lines of verse (usually two lines, but sometimes three). “Balanced parallelism” and a high degree of terseness are arguably its defining features (Berlin 1985:7), unlike the intentionally irregular clause length and sentence structure characteristic of Hebrew narrative (Kugel 1981:85). Perhaps even more fundamental to Hebrew poetry is the poetic line itself, as Dobbs-Allsopp astutely observes, “prose has no line structure, poems (most) often do” (Dobbs-Allsopp 2015:19). As grammarians have long recognized, Hebrew poetry’s penchant for parallel line structure and terseness disrupts the syntactical patterns of the verbal system operative in narrative prose (see Pardee 2012:285–86). For this reason, the most compelling theoretical frameworks of the Hebrew verbal system are those based primarily upon narrative prose in recognition of the difficulty in systematizing the verbal syntax of poetic verse. Nevertheless, narrative verbal syntax is not entirely irrelevant for the study of verbal usage in poetry.
This paper will argue that the Hebrew poets sometimes adopt identifiably narrative verbal syntax, but which is applied within the unique parameters of poetic verse. The primary interest of this investigation will focus upon the function of the consecutive preterite (wayyiqtol) in the Book of Psalms. We will establish the poetic adaptation of narrative verbal features by examining several examples from Psalms (Pss 8:8; 29:5, 6, 9, 10; 95:10; 104:32; 106:43). This study will conclude with a few summary observations about the interpretive significance of this poetic feature in Psalms.