Imperative, Jussive and Cohortative

Lessons 11 and 12 gave you the two indicative conjugations, the perfect and the imperfect, plus the waw-consecutive that drives Hebrew storytelling. They state facts: he guarded, he will guard, and he guarded. But people in texts also want things. They order, they urge, they bless, they forbid. Hebrew has three verb forms for wanting, and grammarians group them under one name, the volitives (from Latin volo, I want).

Read the table as a system, not as three unrelated forms. All three are built on the imperfect you learned in lesson 12. The cohortative adds an ending to the first person imperfect. The imperative takes the second person imperfect and drops the prefix. The jussive is the third person imperfect, sometimes shortened. Once you see that, the forms almost learn themselves (Gesenius, sections 46 and 48).

The model verb קָטַל [ka-TAL] "kill" is the grammarians' choice because it has no weak letters, not because it is common; in fact it is rare. The paradigm forms below follow Gesenius' Paradigm B. For real examples this lesson uses verbs that actually turn up in the imperative again and again: שָׁמַע [sha-MA] "hear, listen," שָׁמַר [sha-MAR] "guard, keep," זָכַר [za-KHAR] "remember," and כָּתַב [ka-TAV] "write."

The Qal imperative

Start with the imperfect second person forms you already know, then strip the prefix ת. What is left is the imperative. The vowel changes that follow are the usual ones forced by the rule that two vocal shewas cannot stand side by side at the start of a word.

Look at the feminine singular. Drop the prefix from תִּקְטְלִי and you would get *קְטְלִי, with two shewas in a row at the start of the word. Hebrew cannot pronounce that, so the first shewa becomes hireq: קִטְלִי [kit-LI]. The masculine plural works the same way: *קְטְלוּ becomes קִטְלוּ [kit-LU]. (The asterisk marks a form that never occurs; it is only a step in the reasoning.) The two forms that keep the holem, קְטֹל and קְטֹלְנָה, are the two with no vowel ending.

The a-class imperative: שְׁמַע

Verbs whose imperfect has patah instead of holem (lesson 12: יִשְׁמַע, against the holem of יִשְׁמֹר) keep that patah in the imperative. שָׁמַע is the best verb to learn this on, because every form is attested, and because its masculine singular is one of the most famous words in the Hebrew Bible.

Deuteronomy 6:4 begins שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל [she-MA yis-ra-EL] "Hear, Israel." In printed Hebrew Bibles, and in the Leningrad Codex, the ע of שְׁמַע and the ד of the verse's last word אֶחָד are written oversized, a scribal tradition for this verse. A plain-text copy of the codex can lose those two large letters, so this lesson writes the words out rather than pasting the verse.

The other workhorse verbs follow the קְטֹל pattern with holem. All of these are in the books this course loads:

Two details worth seeing early. First, a holem can be written full with ו: זְכוֹר in Psalms 132:1, שְׁמוֹר in Ecclesiastes 8:2. Same form, different spelling. Second, when maqaf joins the imperative to the next word, the holem shortens to qamets hatuf, still said o: זְכָר־לִי (Psalms 25:7), כְּתָב־לְךָ (Exodus 34:27), שְׁמָר־לְךָ (Exodus 34:11). The same thing happened to the imperfect יִשְׁמָר־ in lesson 12. The vowel changes; the form and the meaning do not.

Imperatives with object suffixes

Lesson 9 taught the object suffixes. On an imperative the vowel of the first syllable often reduces and the form looks quite different from its bare shape. The masculine singular קְטֹל with a suffix becomes קָטְלֵנִי "kill me," with qamets hatuf (an o vowel) in a closed syllable.

The first vowel of שָׁמְרֵנִי is qamets hatuf, read o, because it stands in a closed, unstressed syllable (lesson 2). If you read it [sha-me-RE-ni] you have mistaken an imperative for something else. This is one of the commonest reading traps at this stage, and the fix is the syllable rule, not memory.

The lengthened imperative in ָה

The masculine singular imperative often adds the ending ָה. Gesenius calls this the lengthened imperative and compares it to the cohortative ending (Gesenius, section 48). In the paradigm, קְטֹל becomes קָטְלָה [kot-LA], again with qamets hatuf. The a-class שְׁמַע becomes שִׁמְעָה [shim-A].

What does the ending add? Grammars describe it as emphasis or urgency, and in prayers it often sounds like a courteous plea. It is not a different person or number; it is still "you (one man), do this." It is very common in the Psalms, where the speaker is addressing God:

תְּפִלָּה לְדָוִד שִׁמְעָה יְהוָה צֶדֶק הַקְשִׁיבָה רִנָּתִי הַאֲזִינָה תְפִלָּתִי בְּלֹא שִׂפְתֵי מִרְמָה׃

Psalms 17:1, Westminster Leningrad Codex

"A prayer of David. Hear, LORD, what is right; attend to my cry; give ear to my prayer, from lips without deceit." There are three lengthened imperatives here. שִׁמְעָה is Qal. הַקְשִׁיבָה and הַאֲזִינָה are Hiphil imperatives (lesson 15) with the same ending. Remember that יְהוָה is read aloud as Adonai [a-do-NAI], and translations print it "the LORD."

Other attested lengthened imperatives you will meet:

• שָׁמְרָה נַפְשִׁי [shom-RA naf-SHI] "guard my life!" (Psalms 25:20).
• קוּמָה יְהוָה [KU-ma a-do-NAI] "Arise, LORD!" (Numbers 10:35), from the hollow verb קוּם, lesson 16.
• שׁוּבָה [SHU-va] "return!" (Numbers 10:36), also hollow.
• שְׁבָה [she-VA] "sit!" and אָכְלָה [okh-LA] "eat!" side by side in Genesis 27:19, from יָשַׁב and אָכַל.
• הָבָה [HA-va], below.

הָבָה: come on!

הָבָה [HA-va] is the lengthened imperative of a rare verb יָהַב "give" (BDB lists it under יָהַב). In use it has stopped meaning "give!" and means "come on! come now!" before another volitive, exactly like English "come, let's ...". The Babel story uses it three times, twice in a row here:

וַיֹּאמְרוּ אִישׁ אֶל־רֵעֵהוּ הָבָה נִלְבְּנָה לְבֵנִים וְנִשְׂרְפָה לִשְׂרֵפָה וַתְּהִי לָהֶם הַלְּבֵנָה לְאָבֶן וְהַחֵמָר הָיָה לָהֶם לַחֹמֶר׃

Genesis 11:3, Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיֹּאמְרוּ הָבָה נִבְנֶה־לָּנוּ עִיר וּמִגְדָּל וְרֹאשׁוֹ בַשָּׁמַיִם וְנַעֲשֶׂה־לָּנוּ שֵׁם פֶּן־נָפוּץ עַל־פְּנֵי כָל־הָאָרֶץ׃

Genesis 11:4, Westminster Leningrad Codex

"They said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks and burn them hard.' So they had brick for stone, and bitumen served them for mortar. Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, so that we are not scattered over the face of the whole earth.'" Literally "a man to his neighbor" (אִישׁ אֶל־רֵעֵהוּ) is the Hebrew idiom for "to one another." We will take these verbs apart in the cohortative section. Genesis 11:7 answers with God's own הָבָה: הָבָה נֵרְדָה וְנָבְלָה שָׁם שְׂפָתָם "Come, let us go down and confuse their language there."

The particle נָא

The small word נָא [NA] follows a volitive, often joined to it by maqaf. Older translations render it "I pray" and modern ones "please," or leave it out. Gesenius lists it with the interjections and calls it a particle of entreaty (Gesenius, section 105). Some modern grammarians argue that it marks a request as following logically from what was just said ("then do this"), rather than politeness. You do not have to settle that to read it: it goes with requests, and it never changes the form of the verb.

אִמְרִי־נָא אֲחֹתִי אָתְּ לְמַעַן יִיטַב־לִי בַעֲבוּרֵךְ וְחָיְתָה נַפְשִׁי בִּגְלָלֵךְ׃

Genesis 12:13, Westminster Leningrad Codex

Abram to Sarai as they enter Egypt: "Please say you are my sister, so that it may go well with me because of you, and my life may be spared on your account." אִמְרִי [im-RI] is the Qal imperative 2 f. sg. of אָמַר "say." Its first vowel is hireq, as in קִטְלִי; the guttural א just takes it without trouble here.

נָא goes with all three volitives:

• With an imperative: שִׂים־נָא יָדְךָ [sim-NA yad-KHA] "please put your hand" (Genesis 24:2); קוּם־נָא [kum-NA] "please get up" (Genesis 27:19).
• With a cohortative: אָסֻרָה־נָּא וְאֶרְאֶה [a-SU-ra-na ve-er-E] "let me turn aside and see" (Exodus 3:3), Moses at the burning bush; אֵלְכָה־נָּא הַשָּׂדֶה [e-le-KHA-na ha-sa-DE] "let me go to the field" (Ruth 2:2).
• With a negated jussive: אַל־נָא תְהִי מְרִיבָה [al-NA te-HI me-ri-VA] "please let there be no quarrel" (Genesis 13:8).

After a word ending in a vowel, the נ of נָא often takes a dagesh (נָּא), as in Exodus 3:3 and Ruth 2:2. That is the conjunctive dagesh of lesson 2 that links closely joined words; the word is the same.

The cohortative: let me, let us

The cohortative is the first person imperfect with the ending ָה. It expresses the speaker's own will: resolve ("I will, let me"), a request for permission ("let me, may I"), or, in the plural, encouragement of a group ("let us") (Gesenius, sections 48 and 108).

The ending takes the stress, so the holem of the stem, now in an open syllable right before the stressed ending, drops to vocal shewa: אֶקְטֹל becomes אֶקְטְלָה. With וְ in front: וְנִקְטְלָה [ve-nik-te-LA] "and let us kill." Real examples with the same pattern:

Two of these need a word. וְנִשְׁמָעָה in Exodus 20:19 has qamets under the מ instead of shewa: it stands at a pause in the verse, and pause restores the full vowel and pulls the stress back. נֵלְכָה comes from הָלַךְ "go," which behaves like a I-yod verb in the imperfect (נֵלֵךְ, lesson 16); the cohortative ending reduces the second tsere, and the shewa that results is vocal because it follows the long vowel tsere in an open syllable.

אָמַרְתִּי אֶשְׁמְרָה דְרָכַי מֵחֲטוֹא בִלְשׁוֹנִי אֶשְׁמְרָה לְפִי מַחְסוֹם בְּעֹד רָשָׁע לְנֶגְדִּי׃

Psalms 39:2, Westminster Leningrad Codex

"I said, 'I will guard my ways, so as not to sin with my tongue; I will keep a muzzle on my mouth while the wicked man is in front of me.'" Here the cohortative is resolve: the speaker is making up his mind, twice.

Cohortatives without ָה

Verbs whose root ends in ה (III-he verbs like בָּנָה "build" and עָשָׂה "do, make") almost never take the cohortative ending (Gesenius, section 75). The bare imperfect then carries the cohortative meaning, and only context tells you. Genesis 11:4 has two: נִבְנֶה [niv-NE] "let us build" and וְנַעֲשֶׂה [ve-na-a-SE] "and let us make." The morphology database behind the lookup tool tags both as cohortatives (Vqh) because of the context, though their shape is the plain imperfect. Genesis 1:26 opens the same way: נַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם [na-a-SE a-DAM] "let us make humankind."

Some cohortatives also carry an object suffix, which replaces the ending: לְכוּ וְנַהַרְגֵהוּ [le-KHU ve-na-har-GE-hu] "come, let us kill him" (Genesis 37:20), the brothers' plot against Joseph.

The jussive: let him, may it

The jussive is the third person volitive (and, as you will see, the second person after אַל). It expresses a wish, a blessing, a permission or an indirect command: "let him go," "may the LORD bless you," "let there be light" (Gesenius, section 109).

Here is the catch. In the strong Qal verb, the jussive is identical to the imperfect: יִקְטֹל can mean "he will kill" or "let him kill." In the strong verb only the Hiphil has a separate jussive shape (Gesenius, section 48). Elsewhere context decides, and the commonest clues are a jussive meaning (a blessing, a wish), the negative אַל, or a position at the head of its clause.

The jussive is visible as a separate form only where the imperfect has something to lose:

You will meet these verb types properly in lessons 15 and 16. For now, the point is simple: a jussive is usually shorter than the imperfect. The III-he verbs drop their final ֶה (this is called apocopation, "cutting off"), and verbs with a long middle vowel shorten it.

וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יְהִי אוֹר וַיְהִי־אוֹר׃

Genesis 1:3, Westminster Leningrad Codex

[va-YO-mer e-lo-HIM ye-HI OR va-ye-HI-OR] "God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light." Two forms of the same verb sit side by side. יְהִי [ye-HI] is the jussive, "let there be." וַיְהִי [va-ye-HI] is the waw-consecutive imperfect, "and there was," and it is built on the same short form: the waw-consecutive in lesson 12 also uses the shortened imperfect where one exists (Gesenius, section 48). The tool tags the first HVqj3ms (Qal jussive) and the second HC/Vqw3ms (waw-consecutive).

The blessing in Numbers 6

The priestly blessing is a chain of jussives. Two of them are in derived stems you will learn in lesson 15 (the Piel יְבָרֶכְךָ and the Hiphil יָאֵר); the rest are Qal. Read it now for the meaning; come back to the forms later.

יְבָרֶכְךָ יְהוָה וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ׃

Numbers 6:24, Westminster Leningrad Codex

יָאֵר יְהוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וִיחֻנֶּךָּ׃

Numbers 6:25, Westminster Leningrad Codex

יִשָּׂא יְהוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וְיָשֵׂם לְךָ שָׁלוֹם׃

Numbers 6:26, Westminster Leningrad Codex

"May the LORD bless you and keep you. May the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the LORD lift up his face toward you and give you peace." וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ [ve-yish-me-RE-kha] "and may he keep you" is our Qal שָׁמַר with a suffix; nothing in its shape says jussive, only the setting. יָאֵר [ya-ER] "may he make shine" is a Hiphil jussive whose shape does show it: the Hiphil imperfect would be יָאִיר, with hireq-yod. And וְיָשֵׂם [ve-ya-SEM] is the short form of יָשִׂים "he will put."

Ruth 1:8: written one way, read another

Ruth 1:8 gives a rare look at the difference between imperfect and jussive inside the text itself. The consonants written in the scroll (the Ketiv, "what is written") are יעשה, the full imperfect "he will do." The vowels printed with them, and the reading tradition (the Qere, "what is read"), give יַעַשׂ [ya-AS], the shortened jussive "may he do." The lookup tool shows both. A blessing wants a jussive, and the Qere supplies it:

לֵכְנָה שֹּׁבְנָה אִשָּׁה לְבֵית אִמָּהּ

Part of Ruth 1:8, Westminster Leningrad Codex

Naomi to her daughters-in-law: "Go, return, each woman to her mother's house; may the LORD deal kindly with you (Qere יַעַשׂ ... חֶסֶד), as you have dealt with the dead and with me." Notice the two feminine plural imperatives at the start: לֵכְנָה [LEKH-na] "go!" and שֹׁבְנָה [SHOV-na] "return!", the f. pl. forms that the table above gave as קְטֹלְנָה. Isaiah 32:9 has two more: קֹמְנָה שְׁמַעְנָה קוֹלִי "rise, hear my voice."

Prohibitions: לֹא or אַל, never the imperative

Hebrew forbids in two ways, and both use a prefix form, never the imperative.

Gesenius describes לֹא with the imperfect as the form of permanent prohibition, the language of law (Gesenius, section 107), and אַל with the jussive as the ordinary negative of a wish or command in a particular situation (Gesenius, section 109). The Ten Commandments use לֹא: לֹא תִּרְצָח. לֹא תִּנְאָף. לֹא תִּגְנֹב. [lo tir-TSAKH. lo tin-AF. lo tig-NOV.] "You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal." (Exodus 20:13 to 15). These are rules for every day, not reactions to one moment.

אַל is the voice of the moment. At the binding of Isaac the angel calls out just in time:

וַיֹּאמֶר אַל־תִּשְׁלַח יָדְךָ אֶל־הַנַּעַר וְאַל־תַּעַשׂ לוֹ מְאוּמָּה כִּי עַתָּה יָדַעְתִּי כִּי־יְרֵא אֱלֹהִים אַתָּה וְלֹא חָשַׂכְתָּ אֶת־בִּנְךָ אֶת־יְחִידְךָ מִמֶּנִּי׃

Genesis 22:12, Westminster Leningrad Codex

"He said, 'Do not lay your hand on the boy, and do not do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God; you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.'" Look at the second prohibition: וְאַל־תַּעַשׂ [ve-al-TA-as]. That is the shortened jussive of עָשָׂה, second person: the full imperfect would be תַּעֲשֶׂה. So the shape itself confirms that אַל takes the jussive. In the first one, אַל־תִּשְׁלַח [al-tish-LAKH], the strong verb shows no difference, but the rule is the same.

More אַל prohibitions from the loaded books:

• אַל־תִּשְׁפְּכוּ־דָם [al-tish-pe-KHU-DAM] "Don't shed blood!" (Genesis 37:22), Reuben to his brothers.
• אַל־תִּפְגְּעִי־בִי [al-tif-ge-I-VI] "Don't press me" (Ruth 1:16), Ruth to Naomi.
• אַל־תִּקְרֶאנָה לִי נָעֳמִי [al-tik-RE-na LI na-o-MI] "Don't call me Naomi" (Ruth 1:20).
• אַל־תֵּלְכִי לִלְקֹט [al-te-le-KHI lil-KOT] "Don't go to glean" (Ruth 2:8), Boaz to Ruth.
• וְאַל־יְדַבֵּר עִמָּנוּ אֱלֹהִים "and let God not speak with us" (Exodus 20:19), a third person negative jussive.

You can compare this with Greek, where μή with the aorist subjunctive forbids a single act and μή with the present imperative forbids an ongoing one (see Intro to Classical Greek, lesson 18). Both languages refuse to negate the plain imperative for single acts, and both reach for another mood instead.

The volitive sequence

When one volitive is followed by וְ and another volitive, the second one usually states the purpose or the expected result of the first. English says "do this and you will live"; Hebrew says "do this and live" and means "do this so that you may live." Gesenius treats this under each of the three forms (Gesenius, sections 108, 109 and 110). The combinations are free: imperative plus cohortative, imperative plus jussive, jussive plus imperative, imperative plus imperative.

A few notes. וִחְיוּ [vikh-YU] is the imperative plural of חָיָה "live"; the conjunction takes hireq here, a special habit before forms of חָיָה and הָיָה (Gesenius, section 104). The same pair, וִחְיוּ after an imperative, recurs in Proverbs 9:6. וְיָפֻצוּ in Numbers 10:35 is tagged as a plain imperfect in the database; its jussive force comes from the sequence after the imperative. In Genesis 20:7 God tells Abimelech to give Sarah back (the Hiphil imperative הָשֵׁב "return!"); then comes וְיִתְפַּלֵּל, which the database tags as a plain Hithpael imperfect "and he will pray," and וֶחְיֵה [vekh-YE], the masculine singular imperative of חָיָה: "and live." The last imperative is the goal of the whole chain. And in Genesis 27:19 Jacob, pretending to be Esau, uses three imperatives in a row and then a purpose clause with בַּעֲבוּר "so that": בַּעֲבוּר תְּבָרֲכַנִּי נַפְשֶׁךָ "so that you yourself may bless me."

Three more ways to give an order

Hebrew does not leave commands to the imperative alone. You will see these soon enough, so they deserve a name now.

• The imperfect with לֹא and without it. Law often states commands as plain imperfects ("you shall"), and the waw-consecutive perfect continues them (lesson 12): וְאָהַבְתָּ [ve-a-hav-TA] "and you shall love" (Deuteronomy 6:5).
• The infinitive absolute. Deuteronomy 5:12 begins שָׁמוֹר [sha-MOR] "keep (the sabbath day)." The infinitive absolute can stand in for an imperative. Lesson 14 covers it.
• The participle with הִנֵּה. Not a command, but a "look, it is about to happen," also in lesson 14.

Updated October 28, 2026.