# והסנה איננו אכל



## JAN SHAR

In the Bible it says

וירא מלאך יהוה אליו בלבת אש מתוך הסנה וירא והנה הסנה בער באש והסנה איננו אכל

I cannot understand והסנה איננו אכל

הסנה means the bush.

איננו means we are not.

What does אכל mean? Is it a participle?


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## Drink

This is a tricky one, but yes, short answer is that אכל is some sort of passive participle.

As for איננו, it actually means "he/it is not". For "we are not", the vowels would be slightly different I think.


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## Ali Smith

Actualy, the vowels are the same for both "he/it is not" and "we are not" (see attachment).


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## Drink

Ali Smith said:


> Actualy, the vowels are the same for both "he/it is not" and "we are not" (see attachment).


Oh thanks. I actually wasn't sure after I posted that comment, and went to look it up, but then got distracted and forgot to follow through lol.


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## JAN SHAR

The passive participle would be aakool. Or did you mean from a binyaan other than kal? If so, which one?


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## Drink

Unfortunately, things are not quite as simple as we'd sometimes like to think.

As I said, the short answer is that ’ukkāl is _some sort of_ passive participle. The rest is not clear.

The most likely option is that it is an alternative passive qal participle. Perhaps a relic of an earlier form from before ’ākhūl came to be used, or perhaps some kind of parallel form. It also seems to be a relic of the same participle that became the base of the passive qal perfect.

Other alternatives that have been suggested are that it's an alternative form of the passive pi‘ēl participle.


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## Ali Smith

Today I found out that לקח has a similar passive form: לֻקַּח 'he was taken' and יֻקַּח 'he will be taken'.


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## Drink

It's not quite similar. אכל is a participle, whereas לקח and יקח are finite forms.


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## Ali Smith

Okay. What about יוּאָֽר? I think it's from the qal passive binyan.


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## Drink

Yes seems to be, but since it's a geminate root, it's not really comparable.


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