I am looking at Psalm 139:16 which the NRSV translates as:
In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.
But the "were written" is יִכָּ֫תֵ֥בוּ which biblehub has parsed as nifal-imperfect-3mp form of כָּתַב (to write down). But isn't the perfect form the one that is "complete?" As in, "the writing is finished"? Shouldn't this be, as imperfect, an incomplete action? Like "in your book are being written" all the days? But the verb for "formed" is in the perfect tense (יֻצָּ֑רוּ), which indicates that the days were formed and that that action is complete (this is the forming as God did in Genesis 2:7 to form adam from the adamah).
What is with the conflict of completeness and incompleteness here in this verse? Is this actually an imperfect conjugation of "writing?" Like, the days have not yet been written? Is this a bad parsing on the side of whatever source biblehub is using?
If the days are already formed (perefect/complete), then is the writing happening as they are lived out? If they are already formed, how can we choose what to do? But is there a determinism here? This Psalm in general is loaded with deterministic imagery of the inescapable God. Why do translations like the NRSV say that the days were already written?
Edit: γραφήσονται is the word in the Septuagint which is a future tense form of the verb "to write"... But still the NRSV, the NIV, the KJV all have the idea that they are already written...