Grammar

Introduction

And now, thoughtful people, you have seen well, know, and understand how verbs with triliteral roots, none of whose root letters disappear, behave wherever they go as commanded by our Rock, at the hand of Moses. [ . . . ] I will now explain to you the characteristics of roots whose radicals do disappear—known as biliteral roots—along with the silent and mobile sheva and light and heavy dagesh.

Intransitive Verbs

You must first understand that every word in Hebrew falls into one of two categories, half into one and half into the other. In the first, the action of the Qal verb affects the subject of the verb, as in Be strong and of good courage (Deuteronomy 31:7). It is the subject of the verb who will become “strong and of good courage.” Similar roots are “to be right,” “to be low,” “to tremble,” “to be fat,” “to be dark,” “to be weak,” “to grow dim,” as in The gold grows dim (Lamentations 4:1).¹ All these verbs act on the person who is the subject of the verb; they therefore do not take a direct object or use the direct object marker et. Compare Exodus 7:13, where we read that “Pharaoh’s heart hardened” on its own, and not as the verse would read if the direct object marker was included, as in “He hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” A similar example occurs in Isaac trembled (Genesis 27:33). You cannot say that one person “trembled” another; one trembles on one’s own. For one last example, see: man shall be humbled (Isaiah 2:9). The same is true for all these verbs.

Transitive Verbs

The second category is that of Qal verbs whose actions affect others; that is, they are transitive, like akhal [eat]. Examples:

• The man ate the bread: and it ate the grass (Exodus 10:15).

• The man killed his companion: and he slew all who were pleasant to the eye (Lamentations 2:4).

• He broke: the Lord has broken the staff of the wicked (Isaiah 14:5).

And similarly, he drank the wine, he did the thing—all such verbs where the action can affect something other than the subject. [ . . . ]

Let there be lights (Genesis 1:14).

The verb [“let there be”] is singular, but the subject [“lights”] is plural; however, this pattern is quite common. You will find the same syntax in They went [plural] up into the Negev and came [singular] to Hebron (Numbers 13:22). In Numbers 9:6, There was [singular] men, the verb actually applies to the situation [rather than to the plural noun]. This is how we ought to understand our verse as well: “Let there be a situation in which there are lights in the sky.” Note that ma’or [a light] derives from the root alef-resh, just as makom [place] comes from the root kof-mem. The days: the plural yamim comes from a singular noun with a different vowel, yom. Compare shor [an ox] with its plural shevarim; you will find an example of the latter in Hosea 12:12, they have sacrificed oxen. The letter vav is such that some are root letters while others are not. If yom were written without a vav, like ḥok [law] and other such words, its plural would be yummim, like ḥukkim. But because it is spelled with a vav, its plural is yamim, with no doubled m.