Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/378

 was so fully established, that it could be used not only in such strange cases, as , cf. , but ultimately even in the 1st sing., as in  [  he will not perform the duty of a husband’s brother unto me;  ]

3. The power of governing like a verb is also retained in those verbal nouns which, although originally secondary forms of the infinitive, have fully acquired the value of nouns, e.g.  (prop. to know the Lord) the knowledge of the Lord;, , , ; an accusative follows  , 15,  (cf. also , );  ;  ; after verbal nouns formed with the prefix  (cf. ), , , ,. The accusative of the object likewise remains after infinitives (or their secondary forms) which have the article, e.g., , or a suffix, e.g. , &c., 28:4, 6, 29:19 f., 30:15, 38:5, ,.

2. The subject of the action represented by the infinitive is mostly placed immediately after it, either in the genitive or nominative. The subject is in the genitive whenever it has the form of a noun-suffix, and also when the infinitive has the termination of the constr. st. fem. sing. (see f); probably also in many other cases, where the infinitive in form and meaning is used more like a substantive, and accordingly governs like a noun. On the other hand, the subject of the infinitive is certainly to be regarded as a nominative, when it is separated from the infinitive by any insertion, and according to certain indications (see g) very probably in ninny other instances.

Rem. 1. Examples of genitives of the subject after infinitives in the connective form are  prop. in the Lord’s hating us; cf. 7:8,, , , , , . The subject of the infinitive is probably also to be regarded as genitive in such cases as and there was no water  (prop. for the drinking of the people), and in cases like  ; , , , 4, 33:38, , , , &c.

2. Examples in which the subject is separated from the infinitive by an insertion, and hence must certainly be regarded as a nominative, are  (prop. for the hiding themselves there the workers of iniquity); cf. ,, , , , , and below, i. The subject is likewise to be regarded as a nominative, whenever the Lamedh is prefixed to the infinitive by means of a pretonic Qameṣ (cf. b above), e.g. ,