21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 2:25, hitpael binyan

Genesis 2:25

 

כה וַיִּֽהְי֤וּ שְׁנֵיהֶם֙ עֲרוּמִּ֔ים הָֽאָדָ֖ם וְאִשְׁתּ֑וֹ וְלֹ֖א יִתְבּשָֽׁשׁוּ:

 

Translation:     The two of them were naked, the man and his wife; they did not shame each other.

 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

שְׁנֵיהֶם	The two of them
עֲרוּמִּים	naked
לֹא	No, not
יִתְבּשָׁשׁוּ	Shame each other

 

Here we have a famous binyan, the hitpael.  It is used for reciprocity or mutuality; it is also used for a special case of reciprocity,  reflexivity.  Later, we will see that it is used for continuous action and therefore is the flip side of piel which is used for punctuated repetition. And it is used for motion back and forth in opposite directions.

 

Binyan: hitpael

Aspect: imperfect

Verb root: bosh, בוֹשׁ

 

This is one of those ayin vav verbs that drops the vav and doubles the last letter in piel and it also does it in hitpael.

 

Also  like piel, hitpael geminates the middle root letter.  However, as you’re about to see, that middle letter might not be vav.

 

As with piel, the aspectless gerundive is the same for both uses.

הִתְבַּייֵּשׁ

This is the imperfect aspect.

 

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
אֶתְבַּייֵּשׁ	נִתְבַּייֵּשׁ	First
תִּתְבַּייֵּשׁ	תִּתְבַּייְּשׁוּ	Second/masculine
תִּתְבַּייְּשִׁי	תִּתְבַּייֵּשְׁנָה	Second/feminine
יִתְבַּייֵּשׁ	יִתְבַּייְּשׁוּ	Third/masculine
תִּתְבַּייֵּשׁ	תִּתְבַּייֵּשְׁנָה	Third/feminine

 

This is the perfect aspect.

 

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
הִתְבַּייַּשְׁתִּי	הִתְבַּייַּשְׁנוּ	First
הִתְבַּייַּשְׁתָּ	הִתְבַייַּשְׁתֶּם	Second/masculine
הִתְבַּייַּשְׁתְּ	הִתְבַּייַּשְׁתֶּן	Second/feminine
הִתְבַּייֵּשׁ	הִתְבַּייְּשׁוּ	Third/masculine
הִתְבַּייְּשָׁה		Third/feminine

 

This is progressive aspect.

 

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
מִתְבַּייֵּשׁ	מִתְבַּייְּשִׁים	First
מִתְבַּייֶּשֶׁת	מִתבַּייְּשׁוֹת	Second/masculine

 

 

But teacher, you’re saying, that’s not what  the verse has.  It has a long “o”, two shins, and a qamats under one of the shins.

 

The form in this verse is another one of those anomalies.  I’ll talk about what this might mean at the end of the course, because I have three examples later in Torah that may indicate chronological development in use of vowels.

 

The point of this being hitpael is that Adam and his wife did not call each other embarrassing names over being naked. That’s the mutuality issue all over.