Genesis 1:1 is one of those really tricky plays on words that doesn't translate well into English. Let's play with the metaphysics a bit while learning why quantum theorists reject spiritualist wuwu. Rock with me as we take the journey within.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
-Genesis 1:1
Seems pretty straight forward right?
Well, having recently learned how to read Hebrew I’d say it’s anything but straight forward. The syntax is incredibly elusive and doesn’t really translate into English very well.
In fact, Genesis 1:1 was quite the point of contention as the scholars responsible for the Septuagint came…
Nisan 15 5782 is April 16, 2022
Pesach I Exodus 12:21-51 Joshua 3:5-7, 5:2-6:1, 6:17; John 19:31-20:1
Day One of Unleavened Bread begins today April 16, 2022. We are to eat matzah today and for the next seven days. At The Seder many questions are still asked by the children.
Yes, kids should not be afraid to ask questions. And, we find that their innocenct can ask the most innocent of…
This lesson I’ll finally be finishing up Hebrew verb stems with the last group of stems: פֻּעַל, פִּעֵל and הִתְפַּעֵל - also called the heavy stems (בִּנְיַנְים כְּבֵדִים binyanim kfvedim) or the double stems (בִּנְיַנְים כְּפוּלִים binyanim kfulim).
The main feature distinguishing them from other stems is a dagesh on the 2nd radical letter, which also gives them their names (note that because ע is a guttural letter it cannot take a dagesh, so it doesn’t appear in the very name of the verb stems - but it’s there). Historically, this dagesh signified gemination, or doubling of a consonant, much like an Arabic shaddah. For instance: כָּתַב ‘(he) wrote’ would be pronounced katav, whereas כַּתָּב ‘reporter’ would be pronounced kattav. These days letters with a dagesh are not pronounced differently than the same letter without a dagesh, but its effect can still be seen - for example in בג״ד כפ״ת, that did not go under ‘softening’ when geminate, and therefore retain their hard pronunciation in verb and noun stems that contain a dagesh.
Now let’s leave the technicalities aside and dive into the verb stems’ individual meanings.
פִּעֵל is one of the most common verb stems in the language, and can take a wide variety of different meanings. From standard active verbs:
In short, it’s a very versatile verb stem that carries a multitude of different, sometimes unrelated meanings.
פֻּעַל, much like הֻפְעַל, is the passive counterpart of פִּעֵל. No more, no less.
שִׁמֵּר shimer ‘to conserve’ - שֻׁמַּר shumar ‘to be conserved’
חִשֵּׁב chishev ‘to calculate’ - חֻשַּׁב chushav ‘to be calculates’
גִּדֵּל gidel ‘to grow’ - גֻּדַּל gudal ‘to be grown’
קֵרֵר kerer ‘to cool’ - קֹרַר qorar ‘to be cooled’
הִתְפַּעֵל is an interesting stem. It is the only third stem in a group, which poses the question: what meaning can it have? Both other groups have just an active stem (פָּעַל, הִפְעִיל, פִּעֵל) and a passive stem (נִפְעַל, הֻפְעַל, פֻעַל), so there’s no other ‘third stem’ you can compare it to and deduce its general meaning from.
That is, until you look at נִפְעַל again: As I said in lesson 3, many נִפְעַל verbs are passive counterparts to פָּעַל verbs, but many others are not: there are also stative verbs and verbs denoting processes. What I failed to say, however, is that some of these are reflexive verbs, where the subject acts upon themselves, in a way. The verb נֶעֱמַד ‘to stand up’ (which I deemed a verb describing the process of standing up) can also be seen as ‘to set oneself up’ - or the reflexive counterpart of הֶעֱמִיד ‘to set up,’ itself the causative form of עָמַד ‘to stand,’ or ‘to be standing’ (as in, to cause something/someone to stand up).
הִתְפַּעֵל’s main meaning is the reflexive form of many, but not all, פִּעֵל verbs:
סִפַּר siper ‘to tell; to cut hair’ - הִסְתַּפֵּר histaper ‘to have a haircut’
קֵרֵר qerer ‘to cool’ - הִתְקָרֵר hitqarer ‘to become cold (to make oneself cold)’
חִמֵּם chimem ‘to heat’ - הִתְחַמֵּם hitchamem ‘to become hot (to make oneself cold)’
צִלֵּם tsilem ‘to photograph’ - הִצְטַלֵּם hitstalem ‘to have one’s picture taken’
Another different, yet related meaning is reciprocity. Reciprocal verbs are verbs where the given action is performed mutually in-between a pair or group. This might seem like a difficult quality to grasp, but in reality in isn’t very complicated. For instance:
כָּתַב katav ‘to write’ - הִתְכַּתֵּב hitkatev ‘to correspond by text (to write to one another)’
לָחַשׁ lachash ‘to whisper’ - הִתְלַחְשֵׁשׁ hitlachshesh ‘to whisper to one another’*
*Consonant reduplication helps emphasize the reciprocal meaning of the verb
דִּבֶּר diber ‘to speak’ - הִדַּבֵּר hidaber ‘to communicate by speech (to talk to one another)’**
**This is a very tricky verb to translate, since it is quite rare outside of mediation circles
Some of these verbs have difficult translations, mostly because such a concept doesn’t really exist in English. But a point you need to remember throughout your language studies is that translations aren’t language. To learn a language, you should not rely on translations to understand a given text. Every language has its unique grammatical constructions and ways of speech that might not be translatable to English. This is especially prevalent among languages distant to English (an example close to me is Korean, which I have been studying myself), and although Hebrew and English sentence structure is relatively similar, they still have vastly different grammar.
If you have a keen eye you might have noticed some strange pronunciations that seem to deviate from the regular הִתְפַּעֵל pattern:
הִסְתַּפֵּר histaper ‘to have a haircut’
הִצְטַלֵּם hitstalem ‘to have one’s picture taken’
הִדַּבֵּר hidaber ‘to communicate by speech (to talk to one another)’
One reason behind this is assimilation, where a consonant’s pronunciation changes because of the surrounding consonants. This is done by speakers in order to make pronunciation easier. For example, if you insert the root ד־ב־ר into the הִתְפַּעֵל stem you should get *הִתְדַּבֵּר hitdaber. However, the /td/ consonant cluster is hard on the tongue, so over time the /t/ assimilated into the /d/ to form a consonant cluster /dd/, or one geminate /d/ consonant (which eventually got to be pronounced only as one /d/): הִתְדַּבֵּר > הִדְדַּבֵּר > הִדַּבֵּר.
Another reason is consonant metathesis, where two consonants change places in order to make pronunciation easier. This can be seen in הִסְתַּפֵּר histaper, where the /s/ and the /t/ switched places to make a /ts/ cluster into an easier /st/ cluster: הִתְסַפֵּר > הִסְתַּפֵּר.
Explaining the change for each consonant combination is cumbersome, so here’s a list of changes:
ט and צ, marked with an asterisk, are quite complicated. You probably noticed I wrote them as /t’/ and /s’/ instead of plain /t/ and /ts/. This is because they weren’t all pronounced as they are today. If you recall, in lesson 1 I recalled many “historical reasons” that there are so many homophones in Hebrew. This is because over its history in the diaspora, certain communities (namely Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews) merged many of those consonants, and in modern times, since the Sephardi reading of the Bible was adopted as the pronunciation of Hebrew after its revival - these mergers stuck. Among these, Sephardim and Ashkenazim merges ת and ט. Originally it was pronounced as an “emphatic” consonant, meaning it came more “from the throat” (If you are familiar with Arabic, it was pronounced like Arabic ط): hence I wrote it as /t’/.
צ was pronounced differently between communities, but originally it was pronounced similarly to ט, “from the throat” (like Arabic ص). However, the Ashkenazi pronunciation /ts/, as if it were a combination of ס and ת, stuck in Modern Hebrew.
The different consonant morphings happened centuries before the Jewish diaspora, so the consonants were still pronounced as they were originally. Back then it was easier to pronounce /s’t’/ than /s’t/ because both consonants were emphatic, so it morphed. These days it seems pointless, since ט and ת have the same phonetic value, but the correct spelling is nonetheless הִצְטַלֵּם. Many speakers make the mistake of writing הִצְתַּלֵּם, but it is just that - a spelling mistake.
Past Tense
Verbs marked with 2, as usual, undergo vowel reduction that turns a shva into a hataf /a/ (סֲ) under certain guttural letters, but you might have noticed something particularly strange in these verbs under the פֻּעַל stem - the characteristic /u/ (סֻ) changes to an /o/ (סֹ). This is because of a phenomenon in Hebrew called “dagesh compensation,” תַּשְׁלוּם דָּגֶשׁ tashlum dagesh, where the vowel before a guttural letter with a dagesh gets intensified to accommodate the reduction of the dagesh.
Dagesh compensation typically happens in the double stems, however it occurs in נִפְעַל as well, in future tense conjugations. It goes as follows:
I marked where compensation occurs in bold, because it does not occur before every guttural letter.
Take note that although the vowel point changes in the first column, םַ, the pronunciation actually stays the same.
Furthermore, each letter handles vowel reduction differently, as you can see. א always takes a hataf (םֱ, םֲ, םֳ) instead of a shva, ר never, and under ה, ע, ח whether the shva changes to a hataf changes on a case to case basis. Keep in mind that this also means the pronunciation is different: when the reduced vowel is rendered as a םְ it can be pronounced either as a /e/ or as no vowel, depending on the following consonant; when it is rendered as a hataf it can be pronounced either as /a/, /e/ or /o/, depending on the identity of the hataf.
If the guttural vowel has any vowel other than םְ, it is conserved and does not change in spite of the vowel intensification (a can seen in the last column, נִפְעַל).
I didn’t write the vowel forms in the tables according to the correct compensated forms (due to the 2nd radical of פ־ע־ל being a guttural) because that would mean a very messy table. I expect you to think for yourselves and write for yourself what the correct forms of the verbs, taking dagesh compensation into account. It isn’t that hard actually, just knowing where /i/ becomes /e/ and when /u/ becomes /o/. (I did, however, include two forms when the vowel on the 2nd radical gets reduced, because that’s what I’ve been doing until now and I like consistency)
Future Tense
1st person conjugations have a different bowel of the prefix (א־) because the vowel on the א either changes to a hataf (אְ > אֲ) or it intensifies (אִ > אֶ).
Luckily that’s all There needs to be explained here. Everything peculiar here, you should already know the answer to from previous lessons
That’s it!
Next lessons I’ll be delving into the present tense and infinitives. Until then - keep your eyes peeled for more lessons!
Hi! My name is Tomer, I’m 18, from Israel. I have a bit too much time on my hands, and recently I’ve gotten into the langblr business, since I’m kind of a massive language nerd.
Therefore, I decided to make my own language teaching blog! When (and if) I start doing this regularly, you should expect Hebrew grammar and vocabulary lessons once a week, give or take. Hopefully once I start gaining followers, I’ll start writing lessons more frequently, but for now I’ll run this on a time-to-time basis.
And… that’s it! Next up, probably in the next couple of hours, a lesson on the Hebrew alphabet and how to read it. Then I want to start a series on verb grammar, then… who knows!
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