<There is an interisting occurance of IATAI at Lev. 14:3 LXX. It follows
<a future of hORAO and may simply be a (I think Perseus said future)
<subjunctive. What makes it intiresting to me, is that the future of
<hORAO translates a Qal converted perfect, VRAH VHNH NRFH (hope you have
<the Heb. text handy. I don't know the transliteration for it) IATAI
<represents an unconverted Niphal perfect. I would translate "... and
<he" (the Priest) "shall look and if it has been healed .."
<What interests me here is the fact that it translates the unconverted
<perfect which in this context, it seems to me, should carry somewhat of
<the idea of the Gr. perfect. I may well be wrong in my understanding of
<the Heb. or the Gr.
Your translation of the Hebrew is good. A search revealed no other
occurrences of finite forms of IAOMAI in the LXX. The Gramcord CD takes the
form as present pass ind, and it translates a Hebrew Niphal perfect.(Niphal
is usually passive but may be reflexive).
In my mind, converted forms do not exist, but all Hebrew perfecs are
perfective and all imperfects are perfective. If it were not for the
interjection hinne (IDOU) before the "unconverted" Niphal, this Niphal
would have been "converted" too, because the waw of the protasis would then
have been connected with the Niphal verb (there are scores of examples of
this). In Hebrew, therefore there are two verbs with perfective aspect
referring to the future, the first one, raa (shall look) is equivalent to
English future, and the second, rafa (has been healed) is equivalent to
future perfect.
In Greek the first Hebrew perfect (raa) is rendered by the future of hORAO,
and the second Hebrew perfect (rafa) is rendered by the present of
IAOMAI.This may be an example of "futuristic present" (cf Fanning 4.1.7).A
Hebrew perfect views the situation as a whole, and when it is used for the
future, it often has some emphasis, as also may be the case with Greek
futuristic present. One additional reason for the use of Greek present for
the future may be that the healing of the leper had already occurred before
the priest went out to take a look so the state already held. Lastly, it
can be said that the Greek translator did not catch the evident conditional
situation of the Hebrew.
Regards
Rolf
Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo