This construction commonly conveys past tense / time. It is frequently referred to by grammarians as the “waw-consecutive” form, the ‘preterite’ form, or the wayyiqtōl / vayyiqtōl form. Tense-based approaches to the Hebrew verb use other labels as well, such as “inverted future”. See IBHS §33, GKC §49a-g, §111; BHRG §21.2; J.-M. §47, §118.