Lesson 6 | Commands
[2] Cohortatives and Jussives
The other two forms of commands in Hebrew are a little trickier.
Cohortatives
A cohortative is like a 1st person command in which the speaker is, in a way, commanding himself (or a group that he is a part of when in the plural). Cohortatives are used to express resolve, requests, and exhortations. We often translate it with the word “let,” though sometimes a simple future tense is the best option. For example:
“I will speak!” (resolve) “Let me return…” (request) “Let us go down…” (exhortation)
The form is easy, as it is identical to the imperfect, though it frequently receives an a-class vowel + ה at the end of the word.
Jussives
A jussive is a 3rd person command, or 2nd person negated command.
3rd Person Jussives
Instead of commanding the person(s) being spoken to, a jussive commands a party which is being spoken of.
imperative — “Eat your food.” jussive — “Let him eat his food.”
You can see in the jussive example that the speaker is commanding something to be done without speaking directly to the person who is to do it. Besides the ordinary sense of a command, jussives can also express desire (e.g. “may he eat his food”).
The jussive form is identical to the imperfect form. That is, when you find an imperfect form, you will need to determine if it is jussive based upon context alone.
Here is an example of three clear jussives. We know that they are jussives rather than imperfects, because the context is Isaac blessing Jacob, not merely stating something that will happen in the future:
2nd Person Jussives (Negated 2nd Person Commands)
The jussive—not an imperative—is also used in the 2nd person when the command is negated. The Hebrew word to negate a command is אַל.
While it is not the most pleasant passage to read, we find an example of an affirmed and negated 2nd person command, along with a cohortative, in Genesis 19:8. Here, Lot is attempting to appease the perverted men of Sodom. Note the negative particle אַל before תַּעֲשׂוּ, showing that it is jussive rather than imperfect.