Yesterday, today, and tomorrow

by Simon John De Vries

From the Old Testament it is immediately evident that the people of Israel had a clear notion of their presence in time and history. But though the ancient Hebrews thus stand out among their Semitic contemporaries, recent scholarship has been slow to pursue the clues the Old Testament provides to this. More than a century has passed since the publication of the only systematic study of the Hebrew language of time. Subsequent research and advances in methodology have made the time ripe for a new comprehensive survey of the rich Old Testament materials that bear on this question. That is the motivation for this exhaustive study of the relevant texts bearing on the critical Old Testament notions of "the day past," "the day present," and "the day future." Devoting long chapters to each of these three building blocks for the Old Testament view of time and history, Simon John DeVries follows a comprehensive methodology, which combines elements from several disciplines to arrive at a more rou