Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/416

, fem., Judaea;  masc., Idumaei, ; fem., Idumaea,. Nevertheless, it sometimes happens that by a very common transference of thought (just as we say Turkey concludes peace) these names are construed as feminine, even when they denote not the country but the inhabitants; so ; cf. ,, , , , , , , , , . Hence the frequent personification of nations (as well as of countries and towns, see h, note 5) as female beings, e.g. , ff., and the use of the expressions   ff.,  &c. (see above) as collective poetical personifications of the people.

(b) Appellative nouns, which denote a circumscribed space, such as, , , (of the Jordan valley), , , ,.

In the majority of nouns denoting place the gender is variable, e.g. and  (usually feminine; the masculine gender only begins to predominate with Ezekiel; cf. Albrecht, l. c., 1896, p. 55),   valley,  (fem., unless , &c., is to be read), , , , , &c.; also , at least in  (referring to Sodom), , and  , is construed as feminine. The mountains and hills commanding the surrounding country are almost without exception masculine (see Albrecht, l. c., p. 60 f.).

(c) The names of instruments, utensils, and (on the same analogy) members and parts of the body in man or beast, since these are all regarded as subservient and subordinate (consequently as feminine).

Thus, , , , , , &c.; in other cases, as (with the article ), , the gender is variable. (‘Instruments for binding or holding, girdles and the like, as constraining and mastering, are masculine,’ Albrecht, l. c., p. 89.)—Also (and in general, members occurring in pairs, Albrecht, l. c., p. 73 f.),  (and so probably ),  and, , , , , , , , , , ; as a rule also  (masc. , &c.),  (masc. , , &c.),  (masc. , &c.),  (masc. ).

(d) Certain names of natural forces or substances are feminine, being probably regarded as instruments, while in the names of the heavens, the heavenly bodies and natural phenomena, the masculine generally predominates (cf. Albrecht, l. c., p. 323 ff.); thus feminine are (but often also, , );  (Ethiopic ’ĕsât)