Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 3:7-8

Genesis 3:7-8

 

ז וַתִּפָּקַחְנָה עֵינֵי שְׁנֵיהֶם וַיֵּדְעוּ כִּי עֵירֻמִּם הֵם וַיִּתְפְּרוּ עֲלֵה תְאֵנָה וַיַּעֲשׂוּ לָהֶם חֲגֹרֹת:

ח וַיִּשְׁמְעוּ אֶת־קוֹל יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים מִתְהַלֵּךְ בַּגָּן לְרוּחַ הַיּוֹם וַיִּתְחַבֵּא הָאָדָם וְאִשְׁתּוֹ מִפְּנֵי יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים בְּתוֹךְ עֵץ הַגָּן:

 

Translation:    The eyes of the two of them were opened and they knew that they were naked and sewed fig leaves and made themselves girdles.  They heard the voice of **** Gd who was walking around in the garden in the day’s breeze and the man and his wife hid themselves from **** Gd among the tree of the garden.

Vocabulary in this lesson:

יִּתְפְּרוּ	They sewed
עֲלֵה	leaf
תְאֵנָה	fig
חֲגֹרֹת	girdles
קוֹל	voice
מִתְהַלֵּךְ	Walking around
יִּתְחַבֵּא	He hid himself

 

“Walking around.”  The mit at the start of this word is the sign of the hitpael binyan.  While its normal use is reflexive, you can’t say “he walked himself” – at least not in this context.  This is one of many times that Torah uses the hitpael in the sense of something done more than once in a row. 

 

“Hid himself” is a true reflexive use of the hitpael.

 

	Active	Passive
Simple	paal or qal	nifil
Habitual/repetitive	piel	pual
Causative	hifil	hufal
Reflexive/repetitive	hitpael

 

While there’s no support in Torah for the idea that apples were the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Torah literally says that the man and woman used fig leaves to make the girdles that covered their nakedness, once they realized that they were naked and ought to be covered.

 

“Tree of the garden.”  Now, we all know that you can’t hide “among” one tree.  This is one of a number of cases when a singular noun is used to represent plural nouns.

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