21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 2:20, lamed alef verbs

Genesis 2:20

 

כ וַיִּקְרָ֨א הָֽאָדָ֜ם שֵׁמ֗וֹת לְכָל־הַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּלְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וּלְכֹ֖ל חַיַּ֣ת הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה וּלְאָדָ֕ם לֹֽא־מָצָ֥א עֵ֖זֶר כְּנֶגְדּֽוֹ:

 

Translation:     The man gave names to all the domestic animals and the flyer of the sky, and all the wild animals; but for the man -- no help opposite him did he find.

 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

מָצָא

He found

 

See the conjugation of yatsa.  Matsa is identical, except in the imperfect, because yatsa has that yod at the start which disappears in the imperfect, while matsa has a mem which never disappears. This is more like bara except that it doesn’t have that weird central resh.

 

Imperfect

 

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
אֶמְצָא	נִמְצָא	First
תִּמְצָא	תִּמְצָאוּ	Second/masculine
תִּמְצְאִי	תִּמְצֶאנָה	Second/feminine
יִמְצָא	יִמְצְאוּ	Third/masculine
תִּמְצָא	תְּמְצֶאנָה	Third/feminine

 

Notice that this is NOT the same word as matsoh, the unleavened bread of Passover.  Matsoh ends with a heh, not an alef.

 

We have the opportunity here, so let me point out something from the Mechon Mamre site on trop. You see the zaqef qatan and the zaqef gadol in this verse. They are both disjunctive. Well, right before the zaqef gadol, there’s an etnach.

 

The “zg” only ever and always marks a single word. But before the “zq”, there’s a phrase and before that there’s a revia.

 

We’ll see this again if we get the chance to compare two other trop, but I might have to do a special lesson on that because one of them is extremely rare. I don’t think there’s been one so far but I have been paying attention to other things.