Hebrew for Bible Readers

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Verbs in Hebrew—as in other languages—can assume many forms, depending on the tense, person, number and gender of the person or thing that is doing the action.

The simplest form of a Hebrew verb consists of three consonants and two vowels to express the past tense. Here are a dozen frequently used verbs:

This simple form of verbs is named Qal (lq’), meaning “light” or “easy.” Qal is one of the seven Hebrew verb patterns. We will learn other verb forms in later lessons.

The most basic form of a Qal verb is the third person masculine singular. The verbs listed above all mean “he ate,” “he completed” “he learned,” and the like. The vowels following the first and second letters of these forms (XX‘X;) indicate the person, number, and gender. Other forms of the simple past tense are created by adding elements of the personal pronouns (see Hebrew for Bible Readers, BR 07:06) to the simplest Qal form:

Thus, the past tense of btk, “to write,” is yTib]t’K; (I wrote), T;b]t’K; (you [m.] wrote), T]b]t’K; (you [f.] wrote), and so on.

Did you notice that in the third person feminine singular and in all the second and third person plural forms some vowels were changed into shewa? This is called vowel reduction; an accent shift causes the vowel reduction. Vowel reductions occur in nouns as well as verbs, as we shall see in future lessons.

Practice conjugating all the verbs above in the past tense so that you can recognize the forms when you see them.

The present tense is expressed by a combination of the independent personal pronouns and the active participles. Here is the pattern for the active participle:

Thus, the present tense of btk “to write,” is bte/K ynIa} (I [m.] am writing), tb,t,/K ynIa} (I [f.] am writing), µybit/K Wnj]n”a} (we [m.] are writing), t/bt]/K Wnj]n”a} (we [f.] are writing), and so on.

The future tense in Hebrew is also expressed by adding pronominal markers mainly to the Qal verb, but the markers and the vowel pattern for the future tense differs from that of the past and present tenses. Using XXX to represent the three consonants of the verb forms provided above, here is the pattern for the future tense:

Thus the forms for the future of btk are bTok]a, (I shall write), bTok]Ti (you [m.] shall write), ybiT]k]Ti (you [f.] shall write), and so on.

You can compose brief sentences in the past and present tenses with all the Qal verbs listed at the beginning of this lesson. However, the verbs lk’a;, rm’a;, dl’;y:, bv’y:, ÷t’n:, ûl’h; and dm'[; have variant forms for the future tense. These variations from the regular form are due to the nature of the initial consonants of these verbs. Here are the future third person masculine singular forms for those verbs: lk’ayO, rm’ayO, dleyE, bveyE, JleyE, and dmo[}y”. Don’t worry now about the other forms in their conjugations. We can delay studying them for a while.

You can now read sentences with these forms. Practice on these from the Bible:

÷M’j’ëta, Wlk]a; laer;c]yI ynEb]W (u-vney yis-ra-el a-chelu et-ha-man) “And the sons of Israel ate the manna.” (Genesis 14:24)

ydi[}B’ rmov]yI jw (YHWH^a yish-mor ba-a-dee) “The Lord shall complete (his purpose) through me.” (Psalms 138:8)

abeN:Ti a¿ rmeao hT;a’ (at-ta o-mer lo tin-na-yeh) “You say, ‘Do not prophesy!’” (Amos 7:16)

tWml; Jle/j ykiona; hNEhi (hen-neh a-no-chee ho-lech la-mut) “Behold, I am going to die.” (Genesis 25:32)

µ/lv;b]a’ yrej}a’ jd;l]y: /taowÒ (ve-o-toh yal-dah acha-ray av-sha-lom) And him she bore after Absalom.” (1 Kings 1:6)

µdos]Bi bvey aWhwÒ (ve-hu yo-shev be-sedom) “And he lived (sat) in Sodom” (Genesis 14:12)

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