Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/488

 4. Plurals of names of animals or things, and of abstracts, whether they be masculine or feminine, are frequently construed with the feminine singular of the verbal predicate (on the collective sense of the feminine form, cf. ); thus ;  (where the predicate precedes), cf. also ; names of things with the predicate preceding occur in, , , , , , , 103:5 (unless  is to be read for ), , ; with the predicate following,  (=branches); ,  , , ,  , 48:41, 49:24, , ,.

5. Moreover, the plural of persons (especially in the participle) is sometimes construed with the singular of the predicate, when instead of the whole class of individuals, each severally is to be represented as affected by the statement. Undoubted examples of this distributive singular are   every one of them, and those that bless thee, blessed be every one of them;,  and 19:8 (in both places the Samaritan has );  unless  is to be regarded as a pluralis maiestatis according to ;  (?),  (?), , , , 28:16

Rem. Analogous to the examples above mentioned is the somewhat frequent use of suffixes in the singular (distributively) referring to plurals; cf. the -suffixes in, , ; and the noun-suffixes in , , , (but since  follows,  is undoubtedly a dittography for ), ,  (where, however,  is clearly to be read with all the early versions); 62:5, 141:10 (?), ,  [but LXX ]; finally, the suffixes with prepositions in   each one for himself (according to others, which they (the makers) made for him); 5:26, 8:20, , in each case ; in   refers to the collectives  and ; cf. further,,  after  (but read probably  with the LXX, &c.). Conversely in  [cf. ], but the text is undoubtedly corrupt.