Looks to me like the Hebrew here is a simple imperfect = future tense. I
think that the Greek subjunctive here in the first person would more
traditionally be called "hortatory:--it's the same as back in Genesis 1;1
where God says, "Let us make man ..." I don't know that "permissive" is a
very good term for it, because, as Clay says, it's not a matter of ASKING
permission, and I suspect that "permissive" derives from the English "Let
us" element, which is simply a periphrastic idiom: "Well, now, how's about
I send you to Pharaoh and get this matter straightened out." It's
tantamount to "I SHALL send you"--and all of this may come down to a use of
the subjunctive that is kindred to the Homeric, where far more often than
not, the subjunctive is simply a declarative future.
I don't know. I'm curious what others think about this.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/