Semantic Biblical Hebrew: numbers 1–10
My latest public iFlipr deck is now up: “Semantic Biblical Hebrew: Numbers 1–10.” This is the third in the Semantic Biblical Hebrew series. I have always found Hebrew numbers a little bit difficult because שלש through עשׂר don’t agree in gender with the noun they modify. I hope that many students of Biblical Hebrew can find this deck useful.
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7 comments Christopher Heard | Hebrew, online resources, teaching and learning
These are so much fun – is there a way to print them? My portable just died and I don’t have technology in the children’s classroom in any case.
I will put the links on the Sunday school blog.
Your teaching tool is a delight – thank you.
I’ve joined the iflpr – I see there are lots more
What do you mean, “שלש through עשׂר don’t agree in gender with the noun they modify”?
Joel, I mean I always have trouble remembering to say, for example, שלשה מלכים instead of שלש מלכים.
Ah.
As you surely know, shlosha actually is the masculine, so it does agree in gender, it just doesn’t look like it.
As it happens, there’s a pattern lurking behind these forms.
In every language there are two kinds of words, called “open class” and “closed class.” “Open class” are words that can be invented on the spot, like nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. “Closed class” words are everything else, including pronouns and numbers.
The pattern is that -ah marks the feminine in open class words, but it marks the masculine in closed class words. That’s why shlosha is masculine, and it’s also why atah (and not at) is masculine.
I have more in my Jerusalem Post column called “As Easy as One, Two, Three,” a link to which is available here.
That’s helpful, Joel. Neither Gesenius, nor Waltke & O’Connor, nor any teaching grammar I own explains things that way.
Thanks for your post about the Hebrew numbers, and also for Joel H’s very interesting insight about the open and closed class words in Hebrew. Alternatively, it could be easier to just remember that the Hebrew numbers three to ten are an exception – i.e. the masculine Hebrew numbers look feminine in form. Similarly, there are a few other exceptions in Hebrew, such as the plurals of fathers (avot) and nights (leylot) looking like feminine plurals, even though they are masculine. Sometimes it is easier to just memorize the exceptions. All languages have exceptions, and Hebrew is no exception!