Bit at a time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 1:13

Genesis 1:13

 

יג וַיְהִי־עֶרֶב וַיְהִי־בֹקֶר יוֹם שְׁלִישִׁי:

 

Transliteration: Va-y’hi erev va-y’hi voqer yom shlishi.

Translation:     There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

Letters in this lesson:

Vocabulary in this lesson:

שְׁלִישִׁי

third

 

So let’s do the past of oseh, “make, do,” in the qal or pal binyan and you will see how the vowels work with an ayin at the start.

 

Singular	Plural	Number/Gender
עָשִיתְי	עָשִינוּ	First person
עָשִיתָ	עֲשִיתֶם	Second person/masculine
עָשִית	עֲשִיתֶן	Second person/feminine
עָשָה	עָשוּ	Third person
עָשְתָה	עָשוּ

 

Notice that the third person plural is the same for both masculine and feminine genders.   This is true of all past tense verbs.

 

Also notice the change in the vowel under the ayin in the second person plural.  This is true for alef and chet as well as for ayin.  Yod takes a shva unless preceded by vav and then the vav takes a chiriq (“ee”); heh takes a chataf segol unless preceded by vav and then it takes chiriq.   Nun takes a shva; resh takes a chiriq (“ee”).  Don’t try to memorize these rules.  Just realize that the letters used in the verbs all have different ways of being regular, and for these letters, this is how they are regular in the past tense. 

 

Learn the forms of asah because you will see all of them in either Torah or the rest of Tannakh.  Just like in English, “make” and “do” are high-frequency words.

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