Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/487

 the people;   (cf. );, , ,  ; ,. Cf. also the construction of national names, as, e.g.  ; .—(β) with the predicate following,  , construed with the plural in the following relative clause;   (cows) were ploughing;  and  =family (in   on the analogy of names of countries, is used for the inhabitants of Bethshemesh); ,  ;   [if correct, figuratively for people];  ;  ;  , preceded by a predicate in the singular.

(b) Of substantives occasionally used as collectives: (α) with the predicate preceding, ;,  ;  .—(β) with the predicate following,  =others;  ; [, and even after  .]

(c) Of feminines as collective terms denoting masculine persons: (α) with the predicate preceding,, the i.e. all the inhabitants of the earth; cf. ,, , 9, &c.; ; .—(β) with the predicate following, , , ,  ;  ;. In read  with the LXX.

Examples of predicates in the singular, notwithstanding the collective meaning of the subject, occur in, , , , &c.—For examples of bold enallage of the number in noun-clauses with a substantival predicate, see above,.

Rem. Not infrequently the construction begins in the singular (especially when the predicate precedes; see o below), but is carried on, after the collective subject has been mentioned, in the plural; e.g. ; 33:4.

3. On the other hand, plurals which have a singular meaning are frequently construed with the singular, especially the pluralis excellentiae or maiestatis (§ g–i; on the union of these plurals with attributes, cf. ), as , 3, &c. (but see the Rem.),, , ; cf., moreover,  with the singular,  ,  .—So feminine forms with a masculine meaning are construed with a masculine predicate, e.g..

Rem. The construction of with the plural of the predicate may be explained (apart of course from such passages as, , where the speakers are heathen, and  may, therefore, be a numerical plural) partly as an acquiescence in a polytheistic form of expression, partly from the peculiar usage of one of the early documents of the Hexateuch, called E by Wellhausen, &c., B by Dillmann; cf. his commentary on Numbers—Joshua, p. 618, and above,, note 2. So (but in conversation with a heathen); 31:53, 35:7, cf. also. That this construction was afterwards studiously avoided from fear of misconception, is shown by such passages as compared with, 8, and  compared with. Cf. Strack’s excursus on in, Munich, 1905, p. 77.