Lesson 2 | Adjectives
[1] How Adjectives Work
Languages often times use adjectives to enrich the meaning of the language by using them to describe nouns. Biblical Hebrew does the same, with adjectives making up about 5% of the words in the תנ״ך.
Adjectives are similar to nouns
In many ways, adjectives in Hebrew look much like nouns. They appear with a gender and number, and can likewise be found in construct form as a part of a construct chain. (More on this below.) The big difference is that adjectives do not possess an inherent gender as nouns do, but rather change their gender to match the nouns they describe. The following paradigm makes this clear.
adjectives
the four forms of טוֹב
| ms | אִישׁ טוֹב | good man |
| fs | בְּשׂוֹרָה טוֹבָה | good news |
| mp | בָּתִּים טוֹבִים | good houses |
| fp | תְּאֵנִים טֹבוֹת | good figs |
So while the noun אִישׁ is always going to be masculine and the noun בְּשׂוֹרָה is always going to be feminine, the adjective טוֹב (“good”) can be either, adding the final ה in its feminine form. The wonderful effect of this is that, unlike nouns, masculine adjectives will always look masculine and feminine adjectives will always look feminine. You can see this in the example “תְּאֵנִים טֹבוֹת” above. The feminine plural noun תְּאֵנִים takes the masculine plural ending, though it is still feminine. But the feminine plural adjective טֹבוֹת does not follow this confusing exception. It takes the feminine plural ending just as all feminine plural adjectives always do.
Adjectives can be used as nouns
These are called substantival adjectives. You will recall the definite article ה prefix. One thing this little letter also has the power to do is to make non-nouns act like nouns. This is true of participles, other verbs, and adjectives in particular. And it is not a hard concept to understand. For while English does not use the word “the” a lot in this fashion, we do see this happening from time to time. The most commonly cited example of this is the old film, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” Here, you can see three adjectives made to act as nouns by simply introducing them with the word “the.”
For a Biblical Hebrew example, click on the first two highlighted words below.
Note that an adjective can also be substantival (i.e. functioning as a noun) without the definite article. This is especially true when found in construct form as a part of a construct chain, since all the words in a definite construct chain are (typically) definite.
Adjectives modify nouns in attributive and predicate positions
But the presence of the definite article ה prefix does not always make an adjective act like a noun. You may have noticed this with the words הָאָרֶץ הַטֹּבָה, underline-highlighted in green in the verse above. Consider the three basic grammatical structures for adjectives below.¹
adjectives
attributive and predicate positions
| attributive | עַם־רָב | a numerous people |
| predicate | הָעָם רָב | the people are numerous |
| attributive, definite | הָעָם הָרָב | the numerous people |
Note the distinct meaning of each of these phrases, all contingent upon where the definite article is presented.
You probably have already figured out that attributive adjectives (the first and third structure above) come in reverse order compared to English. In English, we put the adjective before the noun (as in “numerous people”), but Hebrew presents the noun first.
The second structure is the predicate position and demands an implied stative verb (“is” or “are”). We saw this in the devotional of Lesson 10 of Hebrew I with the phrase אֲנִי רִאשׁוֹן וַאֲנִי אַחֲרוֹן (“I am first and I am last”). In this case there is no ה prefix, but that is only because the personal pronoun אֲנִי is definite by definition. Also, be aware that the order is flexible when we are dealing with the predicate position. “הָעָם רָב” and “רָב הָעָם” mean the same thing.
Now notice the third structure in which the adjective also possesses the definite article prefix. However, it is not substantival because it follows a noun which also possesses the definite article prefix. This is why הָאָרֶץ הַטֹּבָה in the verse above is properly translated “the good land.”
Demonstrative pronouns in the attributive position
Finally, note that demonstrative pronouns (הוּא ,אֵלֶּה ,זֹאת ,זֶה, etc.) can likewise be placed in the attributive position. (You’ve seen in this in one song you learned in Hebrew I, as shown in the next step.)
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