One word, two meanings
In English, Latin, and the Romance languages, the imperfect is a past tense. It describes something that was going on at some earlier time: “I was reading when the phone rang.” Anyone who learned grammar through Latin or Spanish will hear the word and think “was.” Hebrew grammarians borrowed the same label for a very different verb form. Biblical Hebrew cares less about when an action happens and more about whether the speaker views it as finished or unfinished. The Hebrew perfect presents an action as a completed whole. The Hebrew imperfect presents an action as still in progress or not yet done. Context, not the verb form, supplies the time. Think of a house. The perfect is the house with the keys already handed over. The imperfect is the house with scaffolding still on it: it may be going up now, it may be going up next spring, or it may be the house you have been told to build. Nothing about the scaffolding tells you it belongs to the past.
How Hebrew uses the imperfect
The Hebrew imperfect usually points forward. It expresses what will happen, what happens regularly, what may happen, and what must happen. It is the ordinary form for commands stated as law, which is why the Ten Commandments read “You shall not.” Many modern grammars avoid the confusing label and call it the prefix conjugation (its person markers come at the front of the verb) or the yiqtol, after the sample verb teachers use. One exception probably explains the confusion. Hebrew narrative joins an imperfect-looking form to the word “and” to tell a story in the past: vayyomer elohim, “and God said.” Grammarians treat that as its own form (the wayyiqtol, or “waw consecutive”). Leviticus 19:2 does not use it.
| What it marks | English (and Latin) imperfect | Hebrew imperfect |
|---|---|---|
| Action | Going on in the past | Viewed as not yet complete |
| Time | Always past | Set by context: usually future, often habitual or a command |
| Typical English | “was doing,” “used to do” | “will,” “shall,” “may,” “let” |
| Example | “She was reading” (Latin legebat) | “You shall not murder” (Ex. 20:13) |
| Other names | Past progressive, past continuous | Prefix conjugation, yiqtol |
Leviticus 19:2
The verse reads qedoshim tihyu ki qadosh ani, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” The verb tihyu is the imperfect of hayah, “to be,” addressed to the whole people. “Holy” stands first in the sentence for emphasis. The imperfect here does two jobs at once: it commands Israel to live as a holy people, and it promises that Israel will be one. The holiness itself is God’s gift, as He says a chapter later: “I am the LORD who sanctifies you” (Lev. 20:8).
Force of the imperfect
| Passage | Hebrew | Force |
|---|---|---|
| Exodus 3:12 | ki ehyeh immakh | Promise: “I will be with you” |
| Exodus 20:13 | lo tirtsach | Command: “You shall not murder” |
| Psalm 23:1 | lo echsar | Confident future: “I shall not want” |
| Leviticus 19:2 | qedoshim tihyu | Command and promise: “You shall be holy” |
Why it matters
The imperfect in Leviticus 19:2 leaves the sentence open toward a completion God Himself will supply. Saint Peter quotes this verse to Christians (1 Pet. 1:15–16) and then names what completes it: we were ransomed “with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Pet. 1:19). The holiness God commands, He gives in His Son, crucified and risen. Paul says the same thing plainly: Christ Jesus “became to us... sanctification” (1 Cor. 1:30).
Leviticus 19:2 · English and Hebrew Imperfect