Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/417

 fire (rarely );, , as a rule also ; ; also  in , , and others.

4. The following classes of ideas, which are also regarded as feminine in Hebrew (see above, h), are usually indicated by the feminine form, notwithstanding their occasional transference to masculine persons (see r and s):

(a) Abstracts (sometimes along with masculine forms from the same stem, as, as well as , , as well as ), e.g. , , , , , &c. Similarly, the feminine (sing. and plur.) of adjectives and participles is used substantivally in the sense of the Latin and Greek neuter, e.g., , , , , (i.e. a trifling thing), ; so especially in the plural, e.g. , ; , , along with , , , , , ,  (but in verse 6 in the same sense ), ,  and frequently,  , 30 (but cf. also , , ). Cf. moreover, the very frequent use of, (as well as  and ), , , &c., in the sense of hoc, illud (also  equivalent to illa, ): also the use of the feminine form of the verb in  ; cf. ; so too the suffixes, , , referring back to a whole statement.

(b) Titles and designations of office, properly a subdivision of the abstract ideas treated above, under q, and specially noticed here only on account of their peculiar transference to concrete male persons. Thus we have, &c. (as a title of Solomon), properly no doubt that which takes part in or speaks in a religious assembly, hence LXX ἐκκλησιαστής, i.e. concionator, preacher; the proper names, , and  , , and the foreign word ; in the plural  prop. cognomina, then like-named, colleagues; (if this be the true meaning). All these words, in accordance with their meaning, are construed as masculine (in instead of  the words should rather be divided as ; cf. 12:8).