Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- hardcopy resources

I have left some things out because you won’t find them in standard grammar books.  Some  of them come from a doctoral dissertation I found in 2014 (it was approved in 2002).  Some of them I discovered after studying the dissertation, once it cleared up decades of misunderstanding.  That’s the next part of this course.  Take it very slowly because not only is it new, it adds layers of complexity to the Bible that it takes some time to appreciate.

 

There are two books you should try to get at this point.

 

501 Hebrew Verbs takes 501 roots which have high-frequency uses in MIH, and gives the full conjugation in every common binyan (as I said, not all verbs are used in all binyanim),  as well as examples and idioms that use them.  It also refers to Biblical Hebrew by giving the future tense feminine plurals of 2^nd and 3^rd person.  There are great indices in the back.  I can’t tell you how many times it has helped me find whether a verb is peh yod or peh nun much faster than a dictionary would.

 

The other is a dictionary.  Do NOT try to read Biblical Hebrew using a computer translator.  They are aimed at modern Hebrew, and they are pretty bad.  Google translate has wrong meanings for a number of high-frequency verbs.  I don’t know where they got their information, but that’s pretty bad.  If you’re desperate, go to www.mechon-mamre.org, find the exact same verse, copy the verb, and past in your search engine.  If you get a result pointing to “Student’s Gateway”, that is a good one to click on, but it’s not perfect; there are examples of hitpael that it labels as nifal.  “Strong’s” and “Biblehub” won’t get you the bang you’ll get from Student’s.

 

Harkavy’s Student’s Dictionary is available free online from Internet Archive.  It’s not 100% complete down to the last possible variation in a word.  Harkavy often gives traditional translations that don’t reflect the halakhic (Jewish legal) meaning of a word.  It IS organized by verb root, and under those it will show you which binyanim occur in Torah.  The best thing about Harkavy’s is that he cites to Bible verses for each of the subentries.  He may use the verse you got stuck on; very helpful. 

 

Harkavy’s is also modifiable in Acrobat X and up.  As soon as I downloaded it, I set bookmarks for the first page of each Hebrew letter.  Cuts way down on the time it takes to look up a word.

 

If the dictionary doesn’t help, email me.  It might mean that I didn’t realize how many problems there were out there, and I should write more entries on this topic.

 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Outdoors -- blackbird central

That's what my town was this weekend.
They started flowing in from the west Friday.
Sunday they flocked from the south.
There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands.
It took hours for the sky to clear.
They draped the trees, gossiping at the tops of their voices.
Once in a while they would drop down and carpet the grass.
A bunch of them even sat on the road for a moment until a car came through the intersection.
You want blackbirds in your neighborhood; they eat bugs and they are much better-mannered than starlings, who will try to nest in any relatively enclosed space.  Like the enclosure of your through-the-wall AC.  I've seen it happen.
What you don't want are crows, who have a body-image problem.
If these had been crows, the same number would have tried to perch on our trees and the trees would have broken under their weight.  I've seen it happen.
So welcome the blackbirds.

Next event: the return of the male robins.
In about two weeks.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Wow

In a little over two years your pageviews top 16,000.

I'm flattered.

Interesting thing happened recently: lots of hits on the Fact-Checking Bibliography.
There are almost 440 entries in that list.
It's incomplete. I should add some things I accessed during my Samaritan studies.

For 2016:
First Thursday in January, I start posting Hebrew lessons that start with information from Dr. John A. Cook's 2002 doctoral dissertation which taught me about verb aspect and modal morphology. It goes beyond that, however, into internal passives, use of the infinitive absolute, and pausal forms.

About July, the Fact-Checking page will change subjects. I'll finish the archaeology postings and turn to a subject I call "lost in translation". I'll repeat a little bit of what's on the Hebrew page, from another perspective.

Knitting: I'll try to get around to my argyle knitting; that's probably the only new thing for that page. In the meantime my old Cotton Fleece winter warmers are wearing out so most of what I'm doing is replacing them with WotA suites.

Gardening and DIY: I'm thinking hard about a couple of new gardening projects, one of which has a three month deadline. Both of them cross over into DIY.

Outdoors:  This may cross over into an old hobby of mine, drawing.  I might shove a sketch block and some pencils into a backpack and go out walking around the neighborhood, stopping to draw things that catch my attention.  Don't expect to see any shots.  Blogger won't let me upload graphics and besides, it's been so long since I did any drawing that I don't expect to produce anything presentable.

I've gotten hardly any comments so I don't know what you find interesting, or whether your blogs have used mine as a point of departure. What I do know is that flurries of pageviews from Ukraine coincide with flurries of pageviews on the Mendel Beilis material; and new posts on knitting coincide with pageviews from France. Plus you my faithful regulars on the Hebrew and Fact-Checking pages, either when they are posted or after Shabbat ends.

Thank you one and all.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- Who's Who

Now let’s look at Cham’s descendants. 

The sons of Cham Kush and Egypt and Fut and K’naan.

The sons of Kush Seva and Chavilah, Savtah and Ramah, Savtekha and the sons of Ramah Sheva and Dedan.

Kush sired Nimrod, he began to be mighty in the land.

He was the mighty hunter before the Lord therefore they say “like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord.”

The beginning of his kingdom was Bavel, Erekh, Akkad, and Khalneh in the land of Shinar.

From that land went forth Ashur and built Nineveh and the wide places of the city and Kalach.

Resen between Nineveh and Kalach, that is the great city.

Egypt sired Ludim, Anamim, Lehavim, and Naftuchim.

Patrusim and Casluchim from which went out the Pelishtim and Kaftorim.

K’naan sired Tsidon his firstborn and Chet.

The Yevusi, the Emori, the Girgashi.

The Chivi, the Arqi, the Sini.

The Arvadi, the Tsemari, the Chamati and after that the families of the K’naani spread out.

 

I’ll talk about Nimrod later.

Cham’s son Kush is Ethiopia, southwest of Egypt, known in ancient Egyptian as Kash.  It established a substantial presence in a period straddling the destruction of Ebla, when Kush was called Kerma.  By the time the Hyksos took over in northern Egypt, Kerma/Kush took over a substantial portion of Egyptian territory as far as the Nile.  Its Classic period ends about the same time as the Thera explosion.

Egypt as the ancestor of Pelishtim and Kaftorim has interesting consequences.  Kaftor is Crete, where Linear B Mykenaean tablets from the 1400s BCE refer to the Iawones.  Linear B is a known script of the Pelishtim in their language. 

Modern archaeology has found notched scapular bones near the old Pelishtim Pentapolis which are identical to finds on Crete.

As part of the Sea Peoples, the Pelishtim associated with the ancestors of the Greeks, whom most people probably think of as the Ahiyyawa.  That’s not quite accurate.  The Egyptians called the Mykenaeans Pelishtim.  The Hittites called the Mykenaeans Ahiyyawa, according to Singer.  (Remember that Agamemnon, the Achaean leader who attacked Wilusa, was king of Mykenae.)

The Iliad is not a Greek epic, it’s an epic of the Sea Peoples or at least of the Cretan contingent, and the written version records the dialect of the Ionians.

The objection, of course is that Wilusa was destroyed by 1190 BCE.  That is too late for any relationship to Ebla.  But that is level VIIb.  Troy/Wilusa existed in one form or another for 18 centuries before that time, and the heyday of Level II coincides with the great days of Ebla – and comes to an end at the same time.

Have I said this enough ways now?  Good, then we’ll move on.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- top verbs

Here is a list of the most common verbs in Genesis. They are sorted from least to most common.

If you have bought Bolozky’s 501 Hebrew Verbs, you can learn the conjugations in Biblical Hebrew – they are pretty much the same as in modern Hebrew, which is what the book focuses on. Learn the qal of these 29 verbs – except, learn the piel of “speak” – and the hifil of “come, go” and you will cut way down on how often you need to pull out the dictionary.

אהב Love
חלם Dream
אסף Add
עלה Go up
שים Place, put, set
קום Get up
דבר Speak
ירד Go down
ידע Know
מצא Find
שמע Hear
מות Die
ישב Sit, live
עשה Do, make
שוב Return
ילד Give birth
יצא Go out
ברך Bless
אכל Eat
יגד Tell
קרא Call, name, read
ראה See, look
הלך Walk, go
לקח Take, marry, buy
חיה Live
נתן Give, put, set in place
בוא Come, go
היה Be
אמר Say
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

DIY -- I can do anything better than you ...

I said before that DIY is better than commercial versions of some things.
Is there an online list of things we buy in grocery stores that we could make ourselves? 
Well, not all in one place.  Here's my list; if you know of more things like this, post them on your blog.

Cookie dough -- use your search engine to find recipes for "icebox cookies".

Hot pockets -- these are a commercial version of empanadas.  You can fill them with finely chopped leftovers from Thanksgiving as well as fresh ground meat and seasonings.

MacDonald's apple pies -- turnovers or popovers or "hand pies", of course, have been made in homes for centuries.  Almost any filling you like in an 8-inch round crust is fair game in a turnover.

Energy bars -- I don't know if there's an online recipe but in the Little Irish Baking Book, I found "Hunting nuts", something foxhunters used to stick in their pockets for a pick-me-up.

Hostess products -- most of the Hostess products started as an Amish recipe.  (Hostess was founded in Philadelphia to the east of Pennsylvania Dutch territory.)  Dingdongs are small Whoopie pies, their coffee cakes are like crumb cakes, and so on.

Twinkies -- start with an éclair recipe, then use commercial banana pudding for a filling to get the real true original twinkie version.

Trail mix -- easy do: nuts, raisins and dried cranberries, carob chips, granola.

Danish -- find a recipe for Czechoslovakian kolache.  It's almost the same thing and there are Tex-Mex versions that are a cross with empanadas.

Crackers -- any time you make bread, you can save out some of the dough.  Roll little balls, let them sit 20 minutes, roll out thin, punch all over with a fork, and cut into the desired size, then bake 8 minutes at 375.  If you don't punch them, you'll wind up with pita crisps.

Pudding -- I have to say it.  There's no comfortable way of making pudding DIY.  The original recipes  all combined suet and flour and had to be boiled in a special cloth.  Modern recipes all use milk and cornstarch.  If you know of a scratch recipe that is kosher AND non-milchig AND doesn't use a lot of artificial ingredients, let me know.  Until then, you'll have to settle for something commercial with lots of chemicals in it.

Jello -- ditto.  Jello was originally calf's feet boiled down until the chemicals were so denatured that the proteins barely hung together.  This "jelly" was the basis of aspic, blancmangers, and food for invalids.   

Sandwich cookies  -- look for recipes for the French macaron.  It's expensive because of the almond flour, almond production being a victim of the collapse in bee populations.

Noodles -- you can find Youtube videos on the technique of making la mian, Chinese hand-pulled noodles.  That's aside from the obvious -- homemade pasta, egg noodles, and soba.

Pickles -- and how!  including things you never thought of, like marinated broccoli stems or okra.

Croutons -- if you're into making bread, find a good French bread recipe.  Then when the loaf starts to go stale, cut it into cubes and dry them in the oven.  Bag with seasonings for flavored croutons.

Shortbread -- forget your Lorna Doones and even your Walkers, there are scratch recipes for this that are easy to make.

Macaroons -- there are recipes for the original almond version and the coconut version.

Shortcake -- they won't have that convenient little dent in the top; you split them and fill them with sliced strawberries.

Sugar cookies  -- the online Amish sugar cookie recipe is something like shortbread.  So are the online recipes for heart cakes, Eccles cakes and Shrewsbury cakes, except they have currants in them.

Candies -- fudge, panocha, peanut brittle, imberlach or its Passover version farfelach, Turkish delight and toffee, as well as the mosie which I remember from high school.

Granola -- lots of varieties.

Tortilla and corn chips.

Almost anything you can pay an arm and a leg for in a store -- and notice how the weight keeps decreasing while the price stays the same -- you can make at home with fewer chemicals and sometimes cheaper. 

Notice that almost all of these are snacks, things you should only eat in small quantities or on special occasions, if you don't want to be a blimp or have diabetes.  The time and sometimes hard work they take will keep you from making them often.  Knock yourself  out.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- Genesis 10

Now let’s look at some other things that fall out from setting Genesis 10 in Ebla’s times.

One of my favorite Torah commentators is Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitschaq of Troyes, France and Worms, Germany, mostly because we are both language geeks.  When Rashi glosses to other languages, it is mostly to Old French in his Torah commentary, to Old German in his commentary on the rest of Tannakh, and he throws in an occasional reference to Arabic or Greek.

But one thing Rashi wasn’t, is a scholar of Greek classics.

Rashi didn’t know anything about the Iliad.

His identification of Tiras (in Genesis 10) with Persia suited a lot of people. 

Those clergymen who read Greek were familiar with the Persians from histories like Thucydides and Herodotus, and familiar with the phrase “the laws of the Medes and the Persians,” and they knew that Cyrus (sponsor of the Second Temple) had Median origins, so they also tended to associate Madai with Media.

But Media and Persia were in Mesopotamia. 

The same people making this identification were also identifying Tuval, who like Tiras and Madai descended from Yefet, with the Anatolian Tibureni, famous through classical Greek and Roman times as iron workers.  They identified Gomer with the Cimmerians, another peri-Anatolian people.

With the results of 20^th century archaeology, we find that in Ebla’s times, Tiras was in the same region as Wilusa, known as Troy to the Greeks from an eponymous ancestor Tros.  And Tiras’ relative Yavan is the eponymous ancestor of the Ionians.  And iron-working had been in progress in Anatolia for a couple of centuries – more  if you count the obvious signs of human work on meteoric iron as far back as 4000 BCE.

Those Greek-reading clergymen didn’t have the archaeological perspective available now, including the perspective of the material in Ebla.  They couldn’t see into the future and they would not have predicted discovery of the Linear B tablets about Ionian merchants (or mercenaries) in Crete, referred to in Mykenaean texts of the 1400s BCE.  (Linear B was identified as a language about 1900 and deciphered in the 1950s.)

The other names in Yefet’s descendants can be associated with Anatolia, so there’s no reason why Madai wasn’t also in Anatolia, not Mesopotamia, even if we don’t know what later people called it.

With the march of archaeology, I think all of Genesis 10 has to be re-evaluated.

But wait, there’s more.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- hifil bnyan

And finally, the hifil.  This binyan has yod in the middle in present and future and the past starts with heh.  This last issue may seem confusing compared to the hitpael but the hifil will only have tav, tet, or dalet if they are part of the root. 

 

The yod in the present goes with a mem as the first letter.  The mem makes it easy to confuse hifil and piel present tense, but you have that yod to guide you.   Don’t worry about confusing ayin yod root verbs in piel with hifil; the odd fact is that they tend to have no piel.

 

Hifil is called “causative” because usually it means “making somebody do something.”  There are exceptions. 

 

Some verbs with descriptive qal (and therefore non-transitive) use hifil instead of piel for the transitive.  The most important is probably mot: met is qal and means “is dead”; hemit is hifil and means “make dead,  kill”.  There is no piel for this verb.  I don’t know if there’s a rule for which are which.  You’ll just have to learn them.

 

Hevi, the hifil of bo “go”, means “bring”.

 

Present

Singular	Plural	Gender
מֵבְיא	מְבִיאִים	Masculine
מְבִיאָה	מְבִיאוֹת	Feminine

 

In the past tense, notice that there’s no dagesh in the tav before the personal ending any more.  Go back to the rules on dagesh to see why that is.

 

Past

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
הֵבֵאתִי	הֵבֵאנוּ	First
הֵבֵאתָ	הֵבֵאתֶם	Second/masculine
הֵבֵאתְ	הֵבֵאתֶן	Second/feminine
הֵבִיא	הֵבִיאוּ	Third/masculine
הֵבִיאָה	הֵבִיאוּ	Third/feminine

 

In the future feminine plural 2^nd and 3^rd person, Modern Hebrew has a different vowel, but the “o” sound is what you’ll find in the Hebrew of the Bible.

 

Future/aorist

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
אָבִיא	נָבִיא	First
תָּבִיא	תָּבִיאוּ	Second/masculine
תָּבִיאִי	תָבֹאנָה	Second/feminine
יָבִיא	יָבִיאוּ	Third/masculine
תָּבִיא	תָבֹאנָה	Third/feminine

 

If you come across a verb whose root you can’t identify, email me.  I might have to add a lesson to this blog page, or you might have forgotten one of the rules.

 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved

Knitting -- all righty roo

So I have finished my first suite using Wool of the Andes worsted and I like it.
From 16 skeins you get:
one long-sleeve boat-neck pullover for a 40 inch chest and 18 inch finished length from the nape of the neck, 11 skeins.
one pair size 7 1/2 crew socks, one skein each.*
one pair size 7 1/2 gloves, one skein each.
one size 7 1/2 ribbed cap, one skein.
The yarn costs about $50 and you can make an entire suite in a couple of months if your life isn't too crazy.  On the down side, the tools cost almost as much as the yarn.

The glove pattern is here:
http://www.sovereignit.com/warploom/gloves.shtml

I recommend size 3 double points even though you're working with worsted weight yarn.  It makes a nice tight fabric to keep your hands warm.  If you're having trouble figuring the pattern out, I can give you my stitch counts.  They leave a little room and you could layer the wool gloves with silk glove liners on the coldest days.

You will probably want to knit one glove at least as far as the fingers to make sure it's comfortable on your hand.  What I found is that the same stitch count I start with when knitting a worsted crew sock, is the same count I should start a glove with.

The hat pattern is here.  You want size 7 circulars on a 16 inch  tether, and  size 7 double points when you get toward the top.
http://pajheil.blogspot.com/2015/08/knitting-hats.html

The sock pattern is here, you have to buy it.  It includes stitch counts for 5 different sizes.  $8 is not too much for that kind of flexibility, and with Wool of the Andes, a pair makes up in about a week depending on how crazy your life is.  For #5, my sock size, I recommend size 5 double pointed needles, again, because it makes a nice solid warm fabric.
http://cottagecreationspatterns.com/patterns/socks/iowa-crewcruise-socks/

When I use sport weight yarn to make socks, I use pattern #6 and size 4 needles.  I use #7 and size 3 needles with fingering weight yarn.

* If you want to do a 35-round cuff, you can make a size 7 1/2 sock with one skein.  If you want a 40-round cuff, you can either buy 3 skeins of the same color, or you can buy 2 skeins plus one in some other color.  If you want to make lots of pairs of socks with 40-round cuffs, it's probably cheaper to buy two skeins of one color for most of the sock, plus one skein of a neutral color to finish the toe.  You probably want to make mono-color socks if you're going to wear them with Birkenstocks. :-00000

The  pullover goes like this:
You need size 5 circular  needles with 24 inch  tether,
size 7 circular needles with 24 inch tether
size 7 circulars with 16 inch tether
size 7 circulars with 12 inch tether
size 7 double points
size 5 double points

Start with size 5 needles with 24 inch tether, cable on 200; do 8 rounds k2/p2 rib.

Change to size 7 needle with 24 inch tether.

Knit 75 rounds to armpits.

Move 10 stitches at each armpit to holders (I keep waste yarn on purpose for  this) and cast on 10 stitches for steeking. 

Knit 55 rounds with steeking.  On the first 3 rounds, 3 stitches before the steeking slip a stitch, K1, SSO and after it K1, K2TOG.

It will help you place the sleeve right if you run a very long piece of waste yarn outside the decreases on the armhole and up over the shoulder on each side.  When you cut the steeking, make sure there are 5 stitches on each side and the cut falls in the middle of this marker.

Knit off 25 stitches at each shoulder, knitting around from the first to the second shoulder.
When you have knitted off the second shoulder, knit around to the other and then

Start k2/p2 rib, adding a stitch where there’s a gap on each side at the shoulders.
It’s possible you’ll have to K2TOG one or more times to make the rib on this first round come out right.  I know that sounds goofy, but you really don't want nasty little gaps that look like you dropped some stitches, and this K2TOG trick will make the rib look right.
Do k2/p2 rib for a total of 6 rounds and bind off in rib so it can stretch around your head when you put it on.

Using a size 7 circular needle with a 16 inch tether, knit the underarm stitches from right to left off the holder, cut the steeking and pick up stitches around the armhole, making sure to pick up just outside the decreases at the bottom of the steeking.  Use a piece of waste yarn to mark the middle of the underarm on the sleeve and about every 6th row, flip it to the inside or outside of the sleeve so as to leave an obvious line; then you will be able to get your decreases in a nice straight line.

Knit 2 rounds. 
On the next and every 3rd row, right after the middle of the underarm, K1, K2TOG, knit around.
For the 3rd stitch BEFORE the underarm, slip stitch, K1, PSSO, K1.  This decreases on both sides of the middle of the underarm every 3^rd round.  It looks very tidy and you won't have to sew an underarm seam, so when you're done knitting, you're done.
Do this for a total of 84 rounds.
Switch to size 7 with a 12 inch tether, knit 3 more rounds.
On the next and every 4th round, decrease on both sides of the middle of the underarm.
Do this for a total of 26 rounds, which means you will decrease for the last time on round 110 from the shoulder.
At some point you might have to switch to size 7 double point needles because the tether makes it hard to work stitches.
There should be 60 stitches in round 110 from the shoulder.
Knit 2 more rounds.
Use K2TOG evenly spaced to wind up with 52 or 48 stitches, depending  on how tight  you want the cuff.
Change to size 5 DP needles and work k2/p2 rib for 12 rows.  Bind off in rib.
Wash and block.  Take extra stitches where the shoulders meet the neck if there’s a gap.

Don't throw out the ends of the skeins.  This will provide waste yarn for future holders, also you could buy a skein or two of black, cream, gray or beige as a neutral tone and knit up all the  scraps into a scarf that will then go with every suite you make,

I hope you can make one suite during what's left of the winter.  Even if your life is too crazy for that, you might be able to finish it in time for next winter.  These clothes are snuggly warm, and WotA also comes in super bulky if you want some matching or contrasting outerwear, a sport weight for a toasty liner, and the same company has Palette for Fair-Isle patterns or thin layering wear.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- totting up

Let’s review the bidding.

Naram-sin destroyed Ebla about 2350 BCE and then went home and was destroyed himself. 

The Cities of the Plain seem to have been destroyed about 2350 BCE, an event not recorded in Ebla’s tablets, although the names of two of the cities are.

The cities are not listed in Joshua among the inheritance of any of the tribes; they are on the east side of the Jordan River.

They were re-occupied after 1200 BCE and nobody after that would have known they had been destroyed.  By the time of Amos and Hoshea people would have forgotten that the real estate was ever empty.  They would have known the same places, but under different names.

In Amos we find a reference to Sdom and Amorah as a paradigm of absolute destruction, and in Hoshea there’s a reference to Admah and Tsevoiim in the same context. 

The probability is vanishingly small that Amos and Hoshea would invent names that disappeared from history 16 centuries before they were born.

The probability is vanishingly small that Amos and Hoshea would invent names that turned up in an archaeological dig 28 centuries after they died.

The probability is vanishingly small that their audience would have understood or cared about what Amos and Hoshea said unless they either told the whole story – which is not recorded in their work – or the audience already knew the story.

The reference to the cities of the plain in Genesis 10 has nothing to do with Amos and Hoshea, it is an identification of the location, with a reference to Tsidon, the site of which was occupied before 3000 BCE.  Ebla used Tsidon’s port.

The idea that Genesis 10 has to come from the time of Ashurbanipal is not reasonable.  The cities had other names at that point in time, and Amos and Hoshea came before his period.  Anything in Ashurbanipal’s library in cuneiform was not accessible to Jews.

The idea that Genesis 10 comes from the time of Nebuchadnetsar has the same problem.  By that time, Grar itself was a memory, having been destroyed by the Assyrians.  Anything in Nebuchadnetsar’s library in cuneiform was not accessible to Jews.

The only time when the cities of the plain can reasonably be used to give directions, is in the period of Ebla, among people who were there at the time.  I’ll talk more about the issue of Grar later in two contexts.

But wait, there’s more.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- piel binyan

The thing that will confuse hitpael with some other verb form is the mem in the present tense.  If you have a mem followed by tav, you might have a hitpael, but only if there are three more root letters.  If there are only two more, see if there is a repetitive sense to the text.  If it’s a non-continuous (punctuated) repetition, or the subject seems to habitually do X, you might be looking at a piel.

 

I already said we use piel for something people are able to do, like “speak” a language, m’daber.  Except in certain pathological cases, people don’t speak continuously, so the hitpael isn’t appropriate to express speaking a language. 

 

Likewise people don’t work at their trade without a letup, so doing your job might be expressed in the piel.

 

The other main use for piel is in contrast with qal.  If the qal of a verb has an adjectival meaning, or for some other reason is intransitive, or Harkavy marks it as never used, then piel is often used in transitive situations.  Examples include male, “to be full”; mile, the piel, is used for “to fill [a pot, etc]”.

 

Daber in piel is a very common verb.

 

Present

Singular	Plural	Gender
מְדַבֵּר	מְדַבְּרִים	Masculine
מְדַבֶּרֶת	מְדַבְּרוֹת	Feminine

 

Past

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
דִּבַּרְתִּי	דִּבַּרְנוּ	First
דִּבַּרְתָּ	דִּבַּרְתֶּם	Second/masculine
דִּבַּרְתְּ	דִּבַּרְתֵּן	Second/feminine
דִּבֵּר	דִּבְּרוּ	Third/masculine
דִּבְּרָה	דִּבְּרוּ	Third/feminine

Future/aorist

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
אֲדַבֵּר	נְדַבֵּר	First
תְּדַבֵּר	תְּדַבְּרוּ	Second/masculine
תְּדַבְּרִי	תְּדַבֵּרְנָה	Second/feminine
יְדַבֵּר	תְּדַבְּרוּ	Third/masculine
תְּדַבֵּר	תְּדַבֵּרְנָה	Third/feminine

 

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