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This is from Genesis 1:7 Louis Segond translation:

Et Dieu fit l'étendue, et il sépara les eaux qui sont au-dessous de l'étendue d'avec les eaux qui sont au-dessus de l'étendue.

I don't understand why 'sont' is in the present indicative, but 'sépara' is in the past tense. Moreover, if you look at this comparison of 6 Biblical translations they all do that:

https://emcitv.com/bible/genese-LSG.html

Roger V.
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bobsmith76
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    Couldn't you just as easily ask why the King James Bible uses past tense in "And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so," when these waters still are below and above the firmament? – Peter Shor Dec 05 '22 at 18:32
  • see edit ....... – bobsmith76 Dec 05 '22 at 18:38
  • My point is that in English, we tend to backshift statements about facts, even when they're still true. This is not the case in French. See this webpage. In English, you'd say "He told me that the Earth was round." In French, you would say "Il m'a dit que la Terre est ronde." if you said "Il m'a dit que la Terre était ronde," the use of the imperfect tense suggests that either the Earth is no longer round, or that you're not sure whether to believe him when he says it is. – Peter Shor Dec 05 '22 at 18:53
  • @PeterShor Your comparison is not valid: the past tense does not imply existence only in the past. For instance the sentence "In those days he couldn't stand being woken in the night, and still today he hates it." shows that what is talked about in the past is at times something that perdures in the present. Also, the "imparfait" is possible in French : https://www.google.com/search?q=%22que%20la%20terre%20%C3%A9tait%20ronde%22&tbm=bks&lr=lang_fr – LPH Dec 05 '22 at 19:16
  • In the Hebrew text there's no verbs at all, it simply say "waters above... waters below". In addition biblical Hebrew has only two tenses - perfect and imperfect - and the initial sequence is actually in imperfect (aka future) converted to perfect using vav-consecutive (translated as "et") – Roger V. Dec 05 '22 at 19:38
  • @LPH: It seems you're right about French; either the past or the present works in these cases. But in English, people tend to use the past much more often in these situations. See Google Ngrams. – Peter Shor Dec 05 '22 at 19:43
  • @PeterShor As you said, I understand, it is the usual tense to backshift statement (report statements), and the same is true in French for certain verbs ("Il a dit qu'il ne voulait pas de soupe., Elle a répété qu'elle ne prenait plus le bus.",…). – LPH Dec 05 '22 at 20:08

3 Answers3

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TL;DR Although in a story we use the past tense to denote things that are still true today, in this case that reading would involve an absurdity. The choice is thus simplified to whether or not the waters are still in this arrangement.

As Roger Vadim noted, Hebrew can omit the copula, i.e. the form of to be that serves to link a subject and its complement. Thus, the Hebrew reads:

וַיַּ֣עַשׂ אֱלֹהִים֮ אֶת־הָרָקִיעַ֒ וַיַּבְדֵּ֗ל בֵּ֤ין הַמַּ֙יִם֙ אֲשֶׁר֙ מִתַּ֣חַת לָרָקִ֔יעַ וּבֵ֣ין הַמַּ֔יִם אֲשֶׁ֖ר מֵעַ֣ל לָרָקִ֑יעַ וַֽיְהִי־כֵֽן

Which I would gloss thus:

God made the expanse1 [and] he [or it]2 divided the water3 that [is/was/will be] under the expanse from the water that [is/was/will be] above the expanse [and]4 it was thus

Those two [is/was/will be] blocks are where we must supply a copula between "water" and "below" or "above". The problem is that if we want to supply a copula, we have to infer the tense that it would be in if it were there. Also as Roger noted, Biblical Hebrew actually uses two aspects instead of tenses: perfect and imperfect. We usually translate the perfect as past tense and the imperfect as present or future, in both English and French. But these translations are only rough fits, and suggest things to us that may be inconsistent with what the respective aspect would have suggested to the original reader.

If we choose the past ("Il sépara les eaux qui étaient au-dessous de l'étendue d'avec les eaux qui étaient au-dessus de l'étendue"), we might do so because we reason that we use the past even for things that are still true today ("perennial facts"). But consider that this use of the past tense also implies that the thing was already true then. That is, that the water was already below and above the expanse before its creation. Since this seems unlikely (why create the expanse if they're already separated?), using the past tense from this motivation is unwise.

Hence, we're inclined to select the other interpretation of the past tense: that the waters were but are no longer in this arrangement, i.e. "qui étaient (autrefois) ...", the waters that used to be ... Some translators might favour this reading because they link the expanse with Gen. 7's "floodgates of heaven" that were opened for the great flood, releasing the waters that were "above the expanse" but are no longer.5

This leaves us with a more direct reason for why we might choose between the present and past: if you believe that the arrangement so described is intended to be the one still in effect, you select the present (because the past would suggest the wrong perennial fact), but if you believe that the arrangement came to an end, you select the past.

One remark is that though the copula is often omitted, it's actually supplied fairly commonly in the perfect. We might thus expect it to be supplied here if the perfect were intended.6

1 Etymologically, "something spread out".

2 No explicit subject is provided for this verb, but it's 3rd masc. sg., which could agree with God or the expanse.

3 The Hebrew word for "water" looks like a morphological plural, but there is no point in translating this as English's plural "waters" because it never occurs without this ending; it doesn't actually mark the plural. We do the same with "heavens", but we ignore this for "God" which also looks like the plural and should be "Gods" if we were consistent. This is a holdover from old translations and it still persists in "Bible-ese" in English and other European languages despite being the wrong translation.

4 The tense for these pasts is the wayyiqtol, which looks as though it starts with "and", but is used so often in non-conjunctive contexts that we must conclude it does not inherently bear that sense. Without "and", supply punctuation as needed.

5 An unnecessary harmonization, to my mind, and also one that misses the fact that though that was supposed to be the first time it rained, it has continued raining since then, suggesting that there is still water "above the expanse" in the Biblical cosmology.

6 For my money, this makes the present tense the better translation. But I do have to concede that I'm an amateur. :) And we must avoid the fallacy of denying the antecedent and saying that since when the copula is explicit it's in the perfect (P -> Q), therefore if it's not explicit it's not in the perfect (~P -> ~Q). This is not a valid deduction, even if there is probabalistic correlation.

Luke Sawczak
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  • Bravo for this thorough exegesis! Just a side note (although Ancient Testament was written in Hebrew) the Greek versions I have access to can be conveyed in English by either 'And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so' or – Dimitris Dec 06 '22 at 08:29
  • So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. – Dimitris Dec 06 '22 at 08:30
  • Thanks, I take the answer to be that the present is used because it is true for all time. Once, again, Luke, I appreciate your help. – bobsmith76 Dec 06 '22 at 10:58
  • @Dimitris Indeed, we can actually avoid the whole problem very elegantly in both English and French by omitting "that is/was/will be" and leaving it tenseless. – Luke Sawczak Dec 06 '22 at 12:57
  • @bobsmith76 Either for all time, or at least still at the time the account was written :) – Luke Sawczak Dec 06 '22 at 12:57
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    As you sais, the second tenseless version avoids the issue. It is actually, in this way conveyd, in the New International Version. https://biblehub.com/genesis/1-7.htm.

    La bible française La Bible en français courant évite aussi le problème comme suit:

    Et cela se réalisa. Dieu fit ainsi la voûte qui sépare les eaux d'en bas de celles d'en haut. https://lire.la-bible.net/76/detail-traduction/chapitres/verset/Gen%C3%A8se/1/7/Colombe

     – Dimitris Dec 06 '22 at 13:08
  • Thanks for mentioning me :) Just a little remark: we are talking here about Biblical Hebrew, whereas Modern Hebrew actually has past, present and future tenses (with the Biblical Hebrew participle filling for the present) . – Roger V. Dec 06 '22 at 17:38
  • @RogerVadim Good note. I'll add that to the answer. – Luke Sawczak Dec 07 '22 at 00:12
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A possible explanation is that the fact that there are waters above and below would be considered as a perenial fact, it is so for the waters below; for such facts, the present is used (as it is also in English). (From the Christian point of view, today, this is a problem as far as the waters above are concerned.)

(français-Facile) 3) Le présent de vérité générale :

Le présent peut aussi exprimer des faits valables de tout temps. C'est le présent de vérité générale.

ex : Les chimpanzés ne peuvent apprendre que quelques mots.

LPH
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  • I have to disagree about one aspect of this otherwise good answer. Before the 20th century, in English, the present was not often used, even for perennial facts. And the past is still used much more often for perennial facts. See Google Ngrams. This is probably why the OP is confused about why it's in the present in French. – Peter Shor Dec 05 '22 at 20:19
  • @PeterShor I must say that I do not find this case of the use of the present very clear myself; the "imparfait" would seem more appropriate. However, there is a distinction to be made between "perenial fact" and reporting of the statement of one; in the latter case the reporting also rules the grammatical context; it does so in French too. (Si les anciens astronomes avaient pu nous dire que la terre était ronde, on serait peut-être bien plus avancé aujourd'hui. (par exemple)) – LPH Dec 05 '22 at 20:34
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@Luke Sawczak et @LPH have provided thorough answers. Just a side note (although Ancient Testament was written in Hebrew). The Greek versions I have access to can be conveyed in English by either

'And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so'

or

'So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so.'

The second tenseless version avoids the issue. It is actually, in this way conveyd, in the New International Version. https://biblehub.com/genesis/1-7.htm

La bible française La Bible en français courant évite aussi le problème comme suit:

Et cela se réalisa. Dieu fit ainsi la voûte qui sépare les eaux d'en bas de celles d'en haut. https://lire.la-bible.net/76/detail-traduction/chapitres/verset/Gen%C3%A8se/1/7/Colombe

Dimitris
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