During a recent discussion on b-hebrew mail list which deals
withgrammatical aspects of the biblical Hebrew language, we run into the
difficulty of determining narrator's deictic center. This question might be
more properly addresses to psychoanalysts, and I ask for your help.

Consider phrases like,
I told you, I will do it
Every time I met him, I would ask him
Every time I would meet him, I asked him
Enemies pursued them, as the bees would do

In such phrases, time reference point of the narrator (his deictic center)
seemingly shifts. Thus, in "I told you, I will do it" the speaker, after
saying "I told you," is seemingly transposed into the past event (his
deictic center shifts) and continues in the future tense. Indeed, in his
new time reference, something is not yet done, and so he employs future
tense.

Or, about the bees. If bees would take the place of the pursuers, the bees
would behave so-and-so. Narrator mentally clears the pursuers off the
table, puts bees in their place, and expects the bees to operate similarly.
New deictic center is the moment of putting bees on the table, and their
actions are in the future.
An idiom "as somebody would do (future tense) this or that" is commonly
employed in Hebrew to describe past events. The participle "as" seems to
indicate the deictic center shift, when narrator is mentally transposed
into the past events, and past becomes future for him.

Or, "[After that,] annually, the daughters of Israel would go (future
tense) to lament." This refers to ancient tradition, which likely ended by
the writer's time. Is it likely that he was transposed into the
emphatically narrated events, and lamentations remained for him in the
future?

Or, "King Joram settled (past tense) in Jezreel to be healed from the
wounds the Arameans had inflicted (future tense) upon him" 2Kings 8:29
The tangled narration moves from Joram’s death (8:24) to his wound (8:28).
The confused writer shifted his attention (and the deictic center) from
settling in Jezreel to the previous verse where Joram and Ahaziah lead army
against Arameans. The writer’s associations seem clear: when he was to
mention wounds from Arameans, he was transposed to Joram moving against
them, and wounds remained in future. Another association was Ahaziah coming
to see Joram in Jezreel (later in 8:29), and that also transposed the
writer to the same earlier account of Joram and Ahaziah moving against
Arameans.

Still another example. When prophets describe their visions, they often mix
past and future tense. I suggest that they use past tense when their
deictic center shifts forward, and they, in a  sense, "report live," and so
some events of the visions are already past for them. When the prophets
return to the present, to their listeners, they shift to the future tense
to relate prophetic visions.

The suggestion of the deictic shifts explains many cases in the Bible where
the future tense is used to describe past events. Do such shifts seem
reasonable to professional psychoanalysts?

Vadim Cherny
www.Yeshayahu.com