12.2 A note on the paradigm strong verb קטל
קטל is meant to represent the three-letter root of ANY “strong” verb93. The actual translation of קטל is not material for our purposes
- As Izzy mentions in the video we just watched, Hebrew grammars for the past several centuries have used the verb קטל as what is called the “paradigm verb”
- What makes קטל awkward is the word means “to kill”
- Think of קטל as being like a math formula
- In \(a^2 + b^2 = c^2\), the letters “a”, “b”, and “c” have no direct, literal meaning
- In the Pythagorean formula above, “a”, “b”, and “c” are meant to represent the lengths of the three sides of a right triangle
- In the same way, the letters .ק.ט.ל are just variable or placeholder letters that are part of a formula with a larger purpose than the direct, literal meaning
- Also, like Izzy says, we can always think of קטל as “killing” sin, bad habits, or things that can interfere in our relationship with the Holy One
we’ll discuss strong and weak verbs later in this Lesson↩︎