Bit at a time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 1:24

Genesis 1:24

 

כד וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים תּוֹצֵא הָאָרֶץ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה לְמִינָהּ בְּהֵמָה וָרֶמֶשׂ וְחַיְתוֹ־אֶרֶץ לְמִינָהּ וַיְהִי־כֵן:

 

Transliteration: Va-yomer elohim totse ha-arets nefesh chayah l’minah b’hemah varemes v’chaito-erets l’minah va-y’hi khen.

Translation:    Gd said let the earth bring out living soul of its kind, domestic animal and creeper and wild animals of the earth of its kind and it was so.

Vocabulary in this lesson:

רֶמֶשׂ

creeper

 

I might as well do possessives here.  There are two ways to do possessives.

 

One is with the preposition l, and personal endings. 

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
לִי	לָנוּ	First
לָךָ	לָכֶם	Second/masculine
לָךְ	לָכֶן	Second/feminine
לוֹ	לָהֶם	Third/masculine
לָהּ	לָהֶן	Third/feminine

 

Look at the second person singular feminine form.  There is a shva for the last consonant and instead of being underneath, it’s on the left.  The same thing happens with a qamats after a nun in a second or third person plural feminine form.  The kaph and nun have sofit forms that go below the line of the writing, so their vowels go to the left.

 

Now for the other version of the possessive.

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
חָיְתִי	חָיְתֵנוּ	First
חָיתְךָ	חָיתְכֶם	Second/masculine
חָיתֵךְ	חָיתְכֶן	Second/feminine
חָיְתוֹ	חָיתְהֶם	Third/masculine
חָיְתהּ	חָיתְהֶן	Third/feminine

 

Here I want you to notice that there is a shva under the yod EXCEPT where there is an ending which forces a shva under the tav.  

 

What happened here is that chayah, a feminine noun, is converted to its construct state and then the personal endings go on. 

Finally, notice that the heh at the end of the third person singular feminine takes dagesh, and this is always the marker of this form.

 

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