21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 2:21, more on trop

Genesis 2:21

 

כא ווַיַּפֵּל֩ יְהֹוָ֨ה אֱלֹהִ֧ים ׀ תַּרְדֵּמָ֛ה עַל־הָֽאָדָ֖ם וַיִּישָׁ֑ן וַיִּקַּ֗ח אַחַת֙ מִצַּלְעֹתָ֔יו וַיִּסְגֹּ֥ר בָּשָׂ֖ר תַּחְתֶּֽנָּה:

 

Translation:     **** Gd caused a sleep to fall on the man, he slept; He took one of his ribs, He closed the flesh below it.

 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

יַּפֵּל	He caused to fall
תַּרְדֵּמָה	Sleep, trance
יִּישָׁן	He slept
צַּלְעֹתָיו	His ribs
יִּסְגֹּר	He closed
בָּשָׂר	Flesh, meat
תַּחְתֶּנָּה	Below them

 

“He caused to fall” is the hifil of nafal, to fall, a peh nun verb. As you can see, like many verbs with nun at the start of the root, the nun disappears in the imperfect and the middle consonant takes the dagesh of assimilation.

 

Tardemah is not a common word in the Hebrew Bible. The next chance you have of seeing it is in Genesis 15:12 in the episode about what Jews call The Covenant Between the Pieces. 

 

“Below them” uses a personal ending with the preposition tachat which is part of an urban legend I discuss to death on the Fact-Checking page.

 

This verse has caused an urban legend that men have one rib less than women do. It’s not true.  We all have 12 pairs.

 

Find the zaqef. Which one is it?

 

Now find the revia. It marks a verb in narrative past, creating a new clause. Right before it there’s a word marked with etnach. Where did we see that before?

Right, last lesson. The zg was on one word, and the word before that was marked with etnach.

Revia and zg only mark one word. Or rather one lexical unit. When I get the opportunity to point out the difference, I will.