One Waw Turns the Time

The form yoshia, “He will save,” or “He saves,” has the yod at its front marking the One who acts. That form looks at saving as something not yet complete. Hebrew has a way of taking that same form and making it tell of something that has already happened. It needs only one more letter, a waw (ו), set in front.

A Letter That Turns the Time

When a waw, with its own vowel and a doubling of the next letter, is joined to the front of this verb form, the time turns over. A form that spoke of what had not yet come now narrates what already took place. Grammar books call this the waw consecutive.

This is not a rare device. The main line of Hebrew narrative runs in this form. When Genesis tells that God said, and saw, and called, and when the books of Samuel and Kings tell what a king did, they use this turned form again and again. A reader who did not know the rule would hear the stories of Genesis as if they spoke of things still to come. Knowing it, he hears Scripture telling what took place.

The name of the book of Leviticus is an example. In Hebrew the book is called by its first word, wayyiqra, and that word is exactly this form. The YLV renders it “And he called to Moses” (Leviticus 1:1). The front of the word looks like a verb of what is not yet finished, yet with the waw in front it tells of one event already done: He called to Moses, and the LORD spoke to him from the tent of appointed time.

In the older Semitic speech out of which Hebrew grew, this turned form goes back to a form of the past, so it would be a mistake to read it as “not yet finished.”

Three Verbs, Three Times

Three verbs already met in Jacob’s words and in Leviticus are, on the surface, the same kind of form.

Without the waw, the form speaks of a wish or of what is ahead. With the waw, it tells what took place. The one letter decides.

The turning works in the other direction as well. When a waw is joined to the form that sees an action as complete, that form speaks of what is still to come. The clearest case touches our subject directly. In Exodus 6:6, the second place in Scripture where the verb gaal גָּאַל gaw-al' appears, the LORD says, “I will bring you out,” “I will deliver you,” “I will redeem you.” Each of those verbs is a complete form with a waw in front, and each speaks of what the LORD will do. It is a chain of promise that hangs on the words “I am the LORD.” Read as plain completed forms, the promise would turn into a memory. The waw keeps it a promise.

“And the LORD Saved”

Written in this full spelling, wayyosha, “and He saved,” stands seven times in the Hebrew text, and the first of them is at the shore of the Sea of Reeds.

Exodus 14:30 And the LORD saved (yasha ישע yeh'-shah) Israel on that day from the hand of Egypt; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the shore of the sea.

The verb is the form with the waw: it does not promise, it reports.

Earlier in the same chapter, before the waters parted, Moses had spoken to the people in a different way.

Exodus 14:13 And Moses said to the people, "Do not fear; stand firm, and see the salvation (yeshuah יְשׁוּעָה yesh-oo'-aw) of the LORD, which he will work for you today; for as you have seen the Egyptians today, you shall not see them again any more, forever.

There the word is the noun yeshuah, and Moses speaks of it as something about to be seen: “see the salvation (yeshuah) of the LORD, which he will work for you today.” Seventeen verses later the same chapter tells it as done: “And the LORD saved.” The salvation Moses told the people to stand and see is narrated, once it has happened, with the waw consecutive.

The same turned form tells of the LORD saving again in the days of Saul and of David.

1 Samuel 14:23 And the LORD saved Israel on that day; and the battle passed over beyond Beth-aven.

2 Samuel 8:14 And he put garrisons in Edom; throughout all Edom he put garrisons, and all Edom became servants to David. And the LORD saved (yasha) David wherever he went.

Each time the sentence opens with the waw and the verb: and the LORD saved. In each case the writer looks back on what the LORD had done.

Not Everything a Waw Touches Turns

The time turns over only when the waw is joined to a verb in this way. A noun from the same root, with the ordinary word “and” in front of it, does not turn anything. Hebrew writes “and” with the same letter waw, but a noun has no time to turn.

The Psalms show the difference.

Psalm 62:7 Only he is my rock and my salvation (yeshuah), my high tower; I will not be moved.

(YLV Psalm 62:7, Masoretic verse order)

In Hebrew, “and my salvation” is wishuati: the conjunction waw, the noun yeshuah, and the ending “my.” It is a noun joined to another noun by “and.” It says what the LORD is to the psalmist, and it has no tense at all.

The two forms share a root and a first letter, and still they do different things. One names; the other narrates.

Jacob’s Waiting and Our Looking Back

Genesis 49:18 For your salvation (yeshuah) I wait, O LORD.

The verb Jacob uses is qivviti, from qavah, “to wait.” It is a perfect, the Hebrew form that sees an action as a whole. As Book 4 showed, Jacob sums up his life in it: he had waited, and he was still waiting as he spoke. But what he waited for had not yet come. He waited for “your salvation (yeshuah),” the noun.

Exodus 14:30 stands on the other side of the same root. There the verb with the turning waw tells of salvation already carried out: “And the LORD saved Israel on that day.” The root of saving appears on both sides of an event in time. On one side it is a waiting; on the other it is a thing done.

The same is true of the name. The yod at the front of Yeshua looks forward: He will save. The form with the waw looks back: He saved. Jacob called that salvation looking forward, lying on his bed in Egypt, before the sea had parted and long before the Child was born in Bethlehem. Whoever stands on this side of the cross calls on the same name looking back, at a price already paid. One root holds both the waiting and the accomplishing. From where Jacob stood it was a waiting; from where we stand it is done.

But a redeemer is not only the one who acts. In the law of the goel, the one who acts must also be able to bear the cost. The letters of Shua write that second condition too, as two verses in Job and Isaiah show.