Isaiah 30:20: “And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be hidden any more, but thine eyes shall see them teachers:”

There are no tenses in Hebrew, however we do have what is called perfect and imperfect forms.  A perfect form means an action that is completed and an imperfect means an action that is not completed. If an action is completed then you can assume it is a past event and thus you could call it a past tense. If an action is uncompleted you would assume that it is an action that is in a future tense.  However, and this is the wonderful or baffling thing about Hebrew, is that just because an action is completed you do not automatically call it past or if it is uncompleted you do not automatically call it a future tense.  I frequently hear preachers or Bible teachers on the internet or television insist that a certain passage has been mistranslated because “the translation puts it in a future tense when it is really in a past tense.”  That person tends to lose a lot of credibility, at  least with me, because he either has not seriously studied Hebrew and is just parroting something he heard or he had a Hebrew teacher at some Bible college or seminary who was really just an Old Testament professor asked to teach a Hebrew class but had not really made Hebrew his primary focus of study.  The fact is, if the context calls for a word to be rendered as a past tense yet it is in an imperfect or uncompleted action it is still not wrong to render it as a past tense. It may very well be an event that has happened, is happening and will continue to happen.  There is also no present tense in Hebrew, however if  a word is in a participial form you would call it a present. A participle often ends in an ing and words ending in ing are always in a present tense. A Hebrew participle like its English counterpart may not always be in the present tense. You do have past participles and present participles in English but that does not always mean you associate a present participle with the present time or a past participle with a past event.

Again, as with most of Hebrew translation, you are looking to the context to determine a tense.   So with that in mind when I say that the word in Isaiah 30:20 for give nathan  is in an imperfect form and could be translated as a future tense, I am not saying the NASB is wrong for putting the word in a past tense, the Lord gave you bread, nor is the KJV wrong for putting the word in a present tense, the Lord give you bread nor am I saying the NET is right for saying the Lord will give you bread.  Three very different translations, each is nothing more than a paraphrase, the translator offering his opinion. That is the best we can do, only the context can reveal the correct tense and the context here supports all three tenses, so what do you do?  Choose one and forever hold your peace?  However, in the Semitic mindset, which does not carry the preciseness of the Western mindset, they have no problem seeing this as the Lord gave, is giving and will continue to give bread.  Hence speaking metaphorically we find that the Lord has given, is giving and will continue to give you the bread of adversity

This ambiguity continues in Isaiah 30:20 with the Hebrew word for waters of affliction. The word for water is mayim. We cannot really sure just what the root word for water is here. It could be mi  which is simply waters or it could be yim which is the word for hot springs or boiling water.  From the context we would assume it is yim as we are speaking of waters of affliction and it is literally saying you are in hot water.  Then too, the context also indicates that this is a metaphor.   Water has many symbolic meanings in Hebrew.  One meaning is that water can be so powerful it can drill through rocks. This would also indicate waters of affliction.  Hence you would stay with mi as simply water which is being used metaphorically. From this the sages teach that God  will give you an affliction that will drill through the rocky coverings of your heart to penetrate your heart with the love of God.

Let’s take a look at another peculiarity about Hebrew and that is this word for bread which is lachem.  Lachem or bread may not be that loaf of baked ground wheat that you purchase at your supermarket. Hebrew is a poetic language and oftentimes words are simply used to picture something. Bread  has many symbolic meanings.  One aspect of this symbolism or metaphor would include  how bread is made. The taking of  wheat, pounding it into a flower, rolling it and then baking it at a high temperature. The Jews take these metaphors so serious that it is even a custom in baking bread for Rosh Hashanah to invite people who have hurt them during the year and as they roll their bread they will forgive these people.  Here again we have the idea of the bread of adversity.  The sages would teach that the adversity brought on by your sinful acts against another or God  are pounded, rolled and baked to bring you to repentance and the forgiveness of God.

So playing around with the wonderful ambiguity of the Hebrew language I devised my own little metaphor from Isaiah 30:20. That grain which is pounded, rolled and baked comes out as something new (bread) to bring nourishment to others.  Many people have had to go through the pounding, rolling and baking trials by God to bring them to repentance and forgiveness in Jesus Christ so that Jesus can make them into something new, something of value to others, to bring nourishment to others.

Here is another  little grammatical twist, the verse goes on to say: Your teachers shall not be hidden from you.  The word teachers in this passage is moreka.  Note it is plural and not singular.  Yet many modern translations as the popular ESV and NASB will make is singular.  Well,  here again that does not mean the ESV and NASB are not accurate. In fact  singular and plural are different in Hebrew than is English. When we say plural in English we mean more than one where singular is just one. However, that is not always the case in Hebrew. For instance,  the word Elohim (god) in Hebrew is plural but that does not mean more than one God.  It could also mean the ultimate God the supreme God and still be singular.  I personally see this passage as Messianic and hence just one moreka Teacher, Jesus. Hebrew makes that ok, because in a plural form it could mean either many teachers or just one Master Teacher.

Another thing to note about Hebrew is that it is continually drawing pictures. For example the word here for hidden. Our Master Teacher, Jesus will not be hidden, or kanaph in the Hebrew.  The word kanaph comes from an Akkadian root for a winged creature.  A winged creature is very illusive to an archer and hence it gets its Hebrew form of hidden.

One final point about the Hebrew language, the last part of this verse explains it all.  But your eyes will see your Master Teacher.  You see some words in Hebrew have both a spiritual and physical nature to it.  The word see  which is ra’ah is one such word, it can reference a spiritual seeing or spiritual insight as well as physical seeing.  Your spiritual eyes will be opened and you will see the redemption offered by this Master Teacher.  Not only that you will one day see this Master Teacher.

What the prophet seems to be saying here is that God is always speaking to you, to give you direction, to set you on the right path or way (see following verse) but sometimes it just does not get through that thick head of ours, and God may have to bring the bread of adversity, (adversity that will bring us into repentance and the forgiveness of God) and

the hot water of affliction to drill through that hard shell of our heart and pierce it with the love of God through Jesus Christ our Master Teacher whom we will one day see face to face.