35.2 Hitpael Transposition of ת and \(R_1\) when \(R_1\) is sibilant

  • The sibilants are the same letters as the “S” SQiN eM LeVY letters
  • The ancients found it easier to pronounce הִשְׁתַּמֵּר* instead of הִתְשַׁמֵּר
    • English has this too: we find it more “comfterble” to pronounce “comfortable” as “comfterble” - we transpose the “r” and “t”
    • Hebrew transposes the “ת” of the Hitpael preformative with the s-sound of \(R_1\)
  • This can be an initial challenge since the ְ הִ looks like Hiphil
    • If you think the root is שׁתם, then you have a stray ר that doesn’t fit anywhere
    • Four-letter roots do exist but are exceptionally rare in the Hebrew bible - there is no root = שׁתמר
  • The vowels of the Hitpael strong are the same
  • Examples:
    • הִסְתַּתֵּר - he hid himself
    • הִשְׂתַּכֵּר - he earned wages for (hired) himself148

  1. BBH mentions that there are three times n the Bible when \(R_1\) = צ, not only will the ת switch places, it will change to ט.↩︎