עָבָר, הוֹוֶה, עָתִיד (avar, hove, atid) — past, present, future

Etymology

The three standard Hebrew words for grammatical tenses — עָבָר (past), הוֹוֶה (present), עָתִיד (future) — were not coined at once. They emerged over the course of nearly 150 years through the work of four generations of the Tibonid family of translators, who worked in Provence and southern France translating the masterworks of Jewish philosophy from Arabic into Hebrew.

The story begins in Lunel, Provence, where the physician Yehuda ibn Tibbon had settled after fleeing his native Granada when the Almohad dynasty conquered al-Andalus and forced Jews to convert or leave. The Jewish community of Lunel was wealthy and learned but could not read Arabic, and their patron Rabbi Meshullam ben Yaakov asked Yehuda to translate Bahya ibn Paquda's Duties of the Heart into Hebrew. Yehuda finished the translation in 1161, launching a career that would span most of the Semitic philosophical canon.

Translating from Arabic posed a fundamental challenge, as Yehuda explained in his preface to that translation: "Arabic is a broad and full language, suited to every subject, and expression in it is straight and clear... but Hebrew, only what we find in the books of Scripture remains to us, and it does not suffice for all the needs of speech." He coined dozens of terms that remain in use today, among them אֱנוֹשׁוּת (humanity), בְּדִידוּת (solitude), חִיּוּנִי (vital, essential), מוּסָרִי (moral), and שִׁטָּפוֹן (flood). For the three grammatical tenses, he chose: חולף (passing), עומד (standing), and עתיד — translating the Arabic terms madi, hadir, and mustaqbal.

Of the three, only עָתִיד had a prior Hebrew pedigree. The root עת״ד (to be ready/prepared) appears in the Bible (Esther 8:13: "the Jews were ready for that day"), and the word עָתִיד entered Aramaic as an auxiliary marking future action, which Hebrew adopted in Rabbinic literature (e.g., Mishnah Avot 3:1: "before whom you are in the future to give account"). By the time of Yehuda ibn Tibbon, עָתִיד was well established as a marker of futurity.

Yehuda's choices for the other two tenses did not survive. His son Samuel ibn Tibbon, who continued the family's translation work and produced the authoritative Hebrew translation of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, abandoned his father's "חולף" (the passing one) and replaced it with "עוֹבֵר" (the traversing one). He also preferred "עַתָּה" (now) over his father's "עומד" for the present. Samuel explained his reasoning in Perush HaMilot HaZarot (1204): "עַתָּה is in our language the name for the standing time [present], which is the middle point between the past and future time... but in truth there are only two times: past and future."

Samuel's grandson Moses ibn Tibbon (mid-13th century) continued the family practice and chose "עָבָר" (the one that has passed) — used by Abraham ibn Ezra before him — rather than his father's עוֹבֵר or his grandfather's חולף. He kept "עומד" for the present. The final generation, Jacob ben Machir ibn Tibbon (Yehuda's great-grandson, late 13th century), translated Ibn Rushd's (Averroes') Compendium of Logic and in doing so fixed the last piece: he adopted הוֹוֶה (the being, present participle of להיות, "to be") for the present tense, a usage that had appeared as early as the 11th century in a Hebrew translation of the Karaite scholar Levi ben Yefet. His formulation: "past, future, and present" (עבר, עתיד, ההוה) became the standard, and it is Jacob's choices that Hebrew uses to this day.

Key Quotes

"חולף, עומד, עתיד." — יהודה אבן תיבון, "אמונות ודעות" א', א', 1161

"עתה הוא בלשוננו שֵם לזמן העומד שהוא אמצעי לפי הדעת ההמוני בין הזמן העובר והזמן העתיד." — שמואל אבן תיבון, "פירוש המלות הזרות", 1204

"והפעל הוא אשר יורה בעצמו על ענין בזמן מגיע בעבר והעתיד וההוה." — יעקב בן מכיר אבן תיבון, תרגום "כל מלאכת ההגיון" לאבן רושד, סוף המאה ה-13

Timeline

• 1161: Yehuda ibn Tibbon translates Duties of the Heart; coins חולף, עומד (present), retains עתיד
• ~1180s–1204: Samuel ibn Tibbon (son) prefers עוֹבֵר for past, עַתָּה or עומד for present
• ~1240: Reshit Chokhmah by Shem Tov ibn Joseph ibn Falaquera uses עובר, עומד, עתיד
• Mid-13th century: Moses ibn Tibbon (grandson) uses עָבָר, עומד, עתיד
• Late 13th century: Jacob ben Machir ibn Tibbon (great-grandson) adopts עָבָר, הוֹוֶה, עָתִיד — the final standard form

Related Words

• עַתִּיד לָבוֹא — "the age to come" (standard Rabbinic phrase using the same word)
• חולף — passing (Yehuda ibn Tibbon's original term for past tense, not adopted)
• עוֹבֵר — traversing, passing (Samuel ibn Tibbon's term for past tense, not adopted)
• הווה — present; also used in modern Hebrew in the phrase "להיות בהווה" (to be in the present moment)