In Hebrew Poetry there are many yiqtol preterites which have been translated as imperfects. Recent scholarship began to accept the presence of yiqtol preterite without waw. In other words, the independent entity of the yiqtol preterite has been recognized among serious scholars. However, most of the translations did not take yiqtol preterite as independent entity and as a result, allow mistranslation. My concern is to discern those yiqtol preterites in Hebrew Poetry and to correct it, if it is mistranslated. Among weak verbs there are diagnostic markers between imperfects and preterites. Thus it is possible to discern between the two with grammatical diagnostic markers. But among strong verbs there are no diagnostic markers morphologically between two types of the verb so that one can not judge proper translation between the two. In this paper, I propose rhetorical analysis for the proper validation to judge between imperfects and preterites to get correct translation. The Gattung of psalm helps to understand the text and also the translation of it. Recognizing what 'Type' or ' Gattung' of psalm make one to understand the purposes, occasion for which it was written. It gives clues to understand the verb in terms of the tense. Another important key comes from the analysis of the parallelism of the phrase. As is well known, one of the most famous characteristic features of the Hebrew Poetry is parallelism. When the character of the verb which is in question is unclear, clue is to define the parallelled verb to the questioned verb to understand it. Thus rhetorical study of the text is crucial for the translation when there is no grammatical support for the translation. In fact, without the aid of rhetorical study, it is impossible to get correct translation for these yiqtol verbs, when the form is identical between imperfect and preterite.

In Hebrew Poetry there are many yiqtol preterites which have been translated as imperfects. Recent scholarship began to accept the presence of yiqtol preterite without waw. In other words, the independent entity of the yiqtol preterite has been recognized among serious scholars. However, most of the translations did not take yiqtol preterite as independent entity and as a result, allow mistranslation. My concern is to discern those yiqtol preterites in Hebrew Poetry and to correct it, if it is mistranslated. Among weak verbs there are diagnostic markers between imperfects and preterites. Thus it is possible to discern between the two with grammatical diagnostic markers. But among strong verbs there are no diagnostic markers morphologically between two types of the verb so that one can not judge proper translation between the two. In this paper, I propose rhetorical analysis for the proper validation to judge between imperfects and preterites to get correct translation. The Gattung of psalm helps to understand the text and also the translation of it. Recognizing what 'Type' or ' Gattung' of psalm make one to understand the purposes, occasion for which it was written. It gives clues to understand the verb in terms of the tense. Another important key comes from the analysis of the parallelism of the phrase. As is well known, one of the most famous characteristic features of the Hebrew Poetry is parallelism. When the character of the verb which is in question is unclear, clue is to define the parallelled verb to the questioned verb to understand it. Thus rhetorical study of the text is crucial for the translation when there is no grammatical support for the translation. In fact, without the aid of rhetorical study, it is impossible to get correct translation for these yiqtol verbs, when the form is identical between imperfect and preterite.

Yiqtol verb, Translation, Gattungsgeschichte, Parallelism, Chiastic Structure