21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 2:11, subject pronouns

Genesis 2:11

 

יא שֵׁ֥ם הָֽאֶחָ֖ד פִּישׁ֑וֹן ה֣וּא הַסֹּבֵ֗ב אֵ֚ת כָּל־אֶ֣רֶץ הַֽחֲוִילָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־שָׁ֖ם הַזָּהָֽב:

 

Translation:     The name of the one is Pishon; it is the one surrounding all the land of Chavilah which there is the gold.

 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

שֵׁם	name
הוּא	He, it
הַסֹּבֵב	That surrounds
זָּהָב	gold

 

You have probably noticed that hu is the first pronoun you’ve seen so far that is a subject, AKA nominative. That’s because the conjugations of verbs include indications of the person. Here are all the subject pronouns.

 

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
אֲנִי	אֲנָחְנוּ	First
אַתָּה	אַתֶּם	Second/masculine
אַתְּ	אַתֶּן	Second/feminine
הוּא	הֶם	Third/masculine
הִיא	הֶן	Third/feminine

 

I have to warn you that you will usually see hi, “she/it”, spelled with a vav in the middle. Look under it; you’ll see the chiriq for “ee”.

 

You would think there would be rabbinical arguments about why this happens because they seem to discuss almost everything, but you will notice that in every case, the word is accompanied by feminine adjectives and verbs. Also when most people were illiterate, they only heard this material recited and it was always pronounced hi, “she”. So there was never anything to argue about. The only people who argue about it are the ones who didn’t speak BH and only know it from text.

 

Which brings up an interesting point about the Samaritan Pentateuch. In almost every case, it changes the vav to yod. I have a book in progress called The Real Difference which focuses on Samaritan Pentateuch, and I discuss issues that show Samaritan Pentateuch has the same origin as Jewish Torah in the oral tradition. But there are other issues which show that even if Samaritan Pentateuch was originally written down from recitation, the manuscripts don’t always reflect BH. All of the surviving manuscripts were produced in medieval to Renaissance times, when all the Samaritans lived in Arabic-speaking territory. A number of the differences between Jewish Torah and the manuscripts of Samaritan Pentateuch look like ways for speakers of Arabic to represent the material without freaking out over the grammar. You’d have to read the book to see what you think.