B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

We read there
וַיְצַו מֹשֶׁה וְזִקְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת הָעָם לֵאמֹר שָׁמֹר אֶת כָּל הַמִּצְוָה אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוֶּה אֶתְכֶם הַיּוֹם
KJV: "And Moses with the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, Keep all the commandments which I command you this day"
It appears that שָׁמֹר is in what English grammar calls a qal infinitive form, a form said to be the basic form of a verb, without an inflection binding it to a particular subject or tense, or in Hebrew: צורת פועל שאין לה זמן וגוף היא מביעה מהות מופשטת של הפעולה
Not so, thinks I. The form is
שָׁמֹר = שמ-הוּא-ר including the internal personal pronoun הוּא for the person(s) urged to perform the act.
The difference between the צִוּוּי imperative שְמֹר and the מָקוֹר infinitive שָמֹר seems to be that הוּא in the imperative is an individual, whereas הוּא in the infinitive is the community.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

שמר is imperative. There is no הוא in it.

Mira writes

שמר is imperative.

Mira. Seems to me that in the imperative it would have been שִמְרוּ for the many there commanded.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

Mira de Vries wrote:שמר is imperative. There is no הוא in it.

Isaac tends to identify every instance of vav as an indication of the personal pronoun הוא and every instance of yod or heh as an indication of the personal pronoun היא. Some tavs he marks as אתה or את, and others he marks as היא. He thinks that everything that isn't a root letter is a personal pronoun of one sort or another. It's a very odd theory, but you shouldn't be surprised to see these things all over the forum.

שמר in the way you write it is called an absolute (infinitive)

ducky wrote:שמר in the way you write it is called an absolute (infinitive)

Isn't it interesting that both שָׁמֹר and זָכֹר are used in the Sabbath command rather than direct imperatives. Also, the negative commands are לֹא־תַעֲשֶׂה instead of אַל־תַּעֲשֶׂה, which would be the imperative form. Do you think there is something to this?

Hello Jason

לא תעשה is a command - while the אל gives the sense of optative.
By the way, אל-תעש
When there is אל, the form would be in that optative form.
And so, the commandments use לא תעשה as an order.

the שמור and זכור are absolute - and the absolute can comes in a few ways.
Here, it seems to me that it comes here also as a "strong" sense of command.

ducky writes

שמר in the way you write it is called an absolute (infinitive)

"The infinitive absolute is an extremely flexible non-finite verbal form and can function as an adverb, a finite verb, a verbal complement, or a noun. Its most common use is to express intensity or certainty of verbal action. Of all the verbal conjugations in Biblical Hebrew, the Infinitive Absolute is the simplest in form but the most complex in function, demanding the most sensitivity to its context to determine its meaning."
So cute and attractive! I think I will go and dance with it.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

ducky writes

the שמור and זכור are absolute - and the absolute can comes in a few ways. Here, it seems to me that it comes here also as a "strong" sense of command.

What is a "strong" sense of command; accompanied by a showing of a gun?

Isaac Fried, Boston University

Isaac Fried wrote:Seems to me that in the imperative it would have been שִמְרוּ for the many there commanded.

Both are imperative. I don't know why the author (The Almighty, Moshe, or whomever you believe wrote it) sometimes chooses to frame a command in the singular and sometimes in the plural. Rabbis and theologians have all sorts of theories about that, but I just accept it the way it is as long as I understand the meaning. Inconsistency is a common feature of the Biblical Hebrew language, and I don't look for anything behind it. I ascribe it to not having to answer to the criticisms of language teachers.