Weak Verbs

The model verb קָטַל was chosen because nothing in it is weak: three ordinary consonants that take every vowel and every dagesh the paradigm asks of them. Real Hebrew is not so tidy. Of the verbs you have met in this course, אָמַר, הָיָה, עָשָׂה, הָלַךְ, נָתַן, יָשַׁב, בּוֹא, קוּם, רָאָה and לָקַח are all weak, and they are among the most frequent words in the language. Learning weak verbs is not an advanced topic. It is how you read the first verse of almost any page.

A verb is weak when one of its root letters cannot do what the strong pattern asks. Some letters cannot take a dagesh or a simple shewa (the gutturals). Some disappear or merge with their neighbors (נ, י, ו). Some turn into vowels (the middle ו of hollow verbs, the final ה). Some are repeated (geminates). Gesenius gives the weak verbs fifteen sections and a separate paradigm for each class (Gesenius, sections 62 to 76). This lesson gives you the signs that matter for reading, with real forms, and a method for getting back to the root.

Naming the classes

Hebrew grammars name a weak class by the position of the weak letter, using the letters of the old model verb פָּעַל: פ is the first root letter, ע the second, ל the third. So a verb with נ first is פ"נ (pe-nun), a verb with ה last is ל"ה (lamed-he), and so on. English grammars say I-nun, III-he: the Roman numeral is the position. This lesson uses the English names, with the Hebrew ones in the summary table.

(The unpointed abbreviations in the Hebrew-name column are deliberate: grammar terms like פ"נ are written that way, with a mark like a quotation sign called a gershayim.)

Guttural verbs

Lesson 2 gave you the rules for gutturals (א, ה, ח, ע, and partly ר). Three of them drive everything here (Gesenius, sections 62 to 65):

1. A guttural cannot take a vocal shewa. It takes a hateph vowel instead, usually hateph patah.
2. A guttural cannot be doubled. Where the pattern wants a dagesh forte, the vowel before is usually lengthened instead.
3. Gutturals like a-vowels. Next to them, other vowels often become patah.

I-guttural: עָמַד, חָזַק, אָמַר

Giveaway: a hateph vowel under the first root letter, and an a- or e-vowel under the prefix of the imperfect, where the strong verb has hireq.

In יַעֲמֹד the strong יִקְ- has become יַעֲ-: the ע cannot close the first syllable with a silent shewa easily, so it takes hateph patah, and the prefix vowel matches it as patah. The imperative עִמְדוּ, on the other hand, looks completely regular: the ע there has a full vowel, so nothing needs to change.

I-aleph. Five verbs with א first, the most important being אָמַר "say" and אָכַל "eat," go further: the א goes silent and the prefix takes holem. So the imperfect of אָמַר is יֹאמַר [yo-MAR], and with the waw-consecutive וַיֹּאמֶר [va-YO-mer] "and he said," the commonest verb form in Hebrew narrative. In the first person the prefix א and the root א merge into one written letter: אֹמַר [o-MAR] "I will say" (Genesis 22:2) (Gesenius, section 68).

II-guttural: שָׁאַל, בָּחַר, בֵּרַךְ

Giveaway: a hateph patah where the strong verb has vocal shewa under the middle letter, and in the D stems a lengthened vowel instead of a dagesh.

• שָׁאֲלוּ [sha-a-LU] "they asked" (Ecclesiastes 2:10), where the strong verb has קָטְלוּ with a simple shewa.
• בָּחֲרוּ [ba-kha-RU] "they chose" (Isaiah 66:3).
• Piel without doubling: וַיְבָרֶךְ [va-ye-VA-rekh] "and he blessed" (Genesis 2:3), from בֵּרַךְ. The strong Piel would double the middle letter (יְקַטֵּל), but ר refuses, so the vowel under the first letter is qamets instead of patah. Lesson 15 noted the same in יְבָרֶכְךָ and the Pual מְבֹרָךְ.

III-ח and III-ע: שָׁמַע, שָׁלַח

Giveaway: patah before the last letter where the strong verb has holem or tsere; a furtive patah under a final ח or ע; a helping patah before the ending תְּ.

The furtive patah is not a new syllable, just a glide: [sho-ME-a] is really two syllables with an "a" slipped in before the throat sound (lesson 3). And in Ruth 2:8 Boaz asks Ruth הֲלוֹא שָׁמַעַתְּ בִּתִּי "Haven't you heard, my daughter?", with the helping vowel that the strong קָטַלְתְּ does not need (Gesenius, section 65).

III-aleph: מָצָא, קָרָא

A final א is not pronounced at the end of a syllable. It goes quiet, and the vowel before it is usually lengthened to make up for it (Gesenius, section 74).

Giveaway: a long vowel (qamets or tsere) right before a silent א, and a following ת without dagesh.

Compare מָצָאתִי with קָטַלְתִּי. The patah has become qamets because the syllable is now open (the א is silent), and the ת has lost its dagesh lene because a vowel, not a consonant, comes before it. Samuel's night in the temple runs on these forms: הִנְנִי כִּי־קָרָאתָ לִּי ... לֹא־קָרָאתִי "Here I am, for you called me ... I did not call" (1 Samuel 3:5). And Abraham greets his visitors with אִם־נָא מָצָאתִי חֵן בְּעֵינֶיךָ "if I have found favor in your eyes" (Genesis 18:3).

I-nun: נָפַל, נָתַן

When a נ stands at the end of a syllable directly before another consonant, it usually assimilates to that consonant: the נ vanishes and the next letter is doubled (Gesenius, section 66). In I-nun verbs this happens wherever a prefix stands before the root: the imperfect, the waw-consecutive, the Niphal perfect, the Hiphil and Hophal.

Giveaway: only two root letters visible, and a dagesh forte in the first of them right after the prefix. In the imperative and infinitive the נ often simply drops.

וַיִּפֹּל אַבְרָם עַל־פָּנָיו וַיְדַבֵּר אִתּוֹ אֱלֹהִים לֵאמֹר׃

Genesis 17:3, Westminster Leningrad Codex

"Abram fell on his face, and God spoke with him, saying ..." Notice that בִּנְפֹל keeps its נ: the infinitive construct of נָפַל has no prefix in front of the root, so there is nothing for the נ to assimilate into. The dagesh comes only when the נ is squeezed between a prefix vowel and the second root letter.

I-yod and I-vav: יָשַׁב, יָלַד, יָטַב

Most verbs that begin with י in the dictionary began with ו in early Hebrew, and that history shows (Gesenius, sections 69 and 70). In the Qal imperfect the first letter drops and the prefix takes tsere. The imperative and infinitive lose the letter too, and the infinitive takes a feminine ending ת. In the Niphal and Hiphil the old ו comes back, as holem-waw or shureq.

Giveaway: tsere under the imperfect prefix with only two root letters (יֵשֵׁב), a two-letter imperative (שֵׁב), an infinitive in ֶת (שֶׁבֶת), or וֹ right after a Hiphil or Niphal prefix (הוֹשִׁיב).

Genesis 13:6 explains why Abram and Lot parted: וְלֹא־נָשָׂא אֹתָם הָאָרֶץ לָשֶׁבֶת יַחְדָּו "the land could not support them living together." And Genesis 4:1 gives two weak verbs side by side: וַתַּהַר וַתֵּלֶד אֶת־קַיִן "she conceived and bore Cain" (וַתַּהַר is the shortened III-he form of הָרָה, below).

True I-yod verbs. A few verbs had י from the start, and they keep it as a hireq-yod in the imperfect: לְמַעַן יִיטַב־לִי [yi-TAV] "so that it may go well with me" (Genesis 12:13), from יָטַב. Compare יִיטַב (hireq-yod, true I-yod) with יֵשֵׁב (tsere, I-vav).

יָדַע "know" behaves like יָשַׁב and is also III-ע: imperative דַּע [DA] "know!" (Genesis 20:7), Hiphil הוֹדִיעֵנִי [ho-di-E-ni] "make me know" (Psalms 25:4). יָצָא "go out" is I-yod and III-aleph at once: imperfect יֵצֵא [ye-TSE] (Genesis 15:4), imperative צֵא [TSE] (Genesis 8:16).

Hollow verbs: קוּם, שִׂים, בּוֹא

In hollow verbs the middle root letter is ו or י, and it never acts as a consonant. It surfaces only as a long vowel, or vanishes (Gesenius, sections 72 and 73). Because the perfect קָם shows only two letters, dictionaries list these verbs under the infinitive construct: קוּם "rise," שִׂים "put," בּוֹא "come," מוּת "die," שׁוּב "return."

Giveaway: two root letters with a long vowel letter (וּ, וֹ, ִי) between them, or a perfect with qamets and no visible middle letter (קָם, שָׂם, בָּא); qamets under the imperfect prefix (יָקוּם) instead of hireq.

Three things to notice. First, the perfect 3 m. sg. and the participle are identical (קָם, שָׂם, בָּא); the tool tags שָׂם as a participle in Genesis 21:14 and as a perfect in 28:18, from context. Second, the 3 f. sg. perfect קָמָה is stressed on the first syllable, [KA-ma], while the participle feminine קָמָה is stressed on the last; the vowels are the same, and only the accent marks in the codex (or context) tell them apart. Third, the waw-consecutive shortens the vowel and pulls the stress back: יָקוּם becomes וַיָּקָם, read [va-YA-kom] with qamets hatuf. Lesson 13 showed the same shortening in the jussive. In the Hiphil the hollow verbs have qamets under the imperfect prefix and hireq-yod after the first root letter (יָבִיא), shortened to tsere in the waw-consecutive: וַיָּבֵא [va-ya-VE] "and he brought" (Genesis 2:19) is the Hiphil of בּוֹא, "cause to come."

III-he: בָּנָה, עָשָׂה, הָיָה

The largest weak class. The ה at the end of the dictionary form is not a consonant; it is a vowel letter standing for a lost י or ו (Gesenius, section 75). So the ending changes from form to form, and in some forms it disappears.

The short forms are the hardest to spot, because the jussive and the waw-consecutive lose the whole ending and the word can look like a two-letter root: יִבְנֶה becomes וַיִּבֶן "and he built," יַעֲשֶׂה becomes וַיַּעַשׂ "and he made," יִהְיֶה becomes יְהִי and וַיְהִי. You have already met יְהִי אוֹר (Genesis 1:3), the Qere יַעַשׂ in Ruth 1:8, and וַתַּהַר "and she conceived" from הָרָה. When a waw-consecutive form seems to have only two root letters and ends in a segolate pair of vowels (וַיִּבֶן, וַיַּעַשׂ), suspect III-he.

וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהוֹם וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל־פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם׃

Genesis 1:2, Westminster Leningrad Codex

"The earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters." הָיְתָה is the 3 f. sg. perfect of הָיָה, agreeing with the feminine noun אֶרֶץ; the ת is the feminine ending, the י the old third root letter. מְרַחֶפֶת is a Piel participle, feminine because רוּחַ is feminine.

Geminate verbs: סָבַב

In geminate verbs the second and third root letters are the same, and they tend to merge into one doubled letter (Gesenius, section 67). The Qal perfect has two forms, the full סָבַב and the contracted סַב; with endings the doubling shows as a dagesh.

Giveaway: two visible root letters with a dagesh in the second before an ending (סַבּוּ), or an o-vowel short form (סֹב), or, in some imperfects, a dagesh in the first letter that looks like I-nun (וַיִּסֹּב).

סַבּוּנִי גַם־סְבָבוּנִי בְּשֵׁם יְהוָה כִּי אֲמִילַם׃

Psalms 118:11, Westminster Leningrad Codex

"They surrounded me, yes, they surrounded me; in the name of the LORD I cut them off." The psalm uses both forms of the same perfect in one breath, the contracted סַבּוּנִי and the full סְבָבוּנִי. The וַיִּסֹּב of 1 Samuel 22:18, with a doubled first letter, is a second imperfect type of geminate verbs, which Gesenius calls Aramaic-like (Gesenius, section 67); it is why the root-finding chart below asks you to consider a geminate when an I-nun guess fails.

Doubly weak: נָתַן, הָלַךְ, לָקַח

Three of the commonest verbs in the language break the rules twice, and each in a different way (Gesenius, sections 66, 69 and 76).

נָתַן "give"

Both נ's are weak. The first assimilates like any I-nun verb: יִתֵּן. The last assimilates too, which almost no other verb does: before the endings תִּי, תָּ the final נ becomes a dagesh in the ת, so נָתַנְתִּי is written נָתַתִּי. The imperative is תֵּן or lengthened תְּנָה, and the infinitive construct is the very short תֵּת, with both נ's gone and a feminine ת added.

הָלַךְ "go, walk"

הָלַךְ is a I-ה verb that behaves in the Qal imperfect, imperative and infinitive exactly like a I-yod verb, as if its root were *ילך: imperfect יֵלֵךְ, waw-consecutive וַיֵּלֶךְ, imperative לֵךְ (plural לְכוּ), infinitive לֶכֶת, Hiphil הוֹלִיךְ. The perfect, the participle הֹלֵךְ and the infinitive absolute הָלוֹךְ keep the ה. The lookup tool's lemma numbers show this split: it files the forms without ה under Strong's number 3212 and the forms with ה under 1980, a convention inherited from Strong's concordance. They are one verb.

• יֵלֵךְ [ye-LEKH] "he will go" (Exodus 10:24)
• לֶךְ־לְךָ [lekh-le-KHA] "go!" (Genesis 12:1), with לֵךְ shortened before maqaf
• לָלֶכֶת [la-LE-khet] "to go" (Genesis 12:5)

לָקַח "take"

לָקַח is III-ח, and its ל acts as if it were the נ of an I-nun verb: it assimilates in the imperfect and drops in the imperative and infinitive.

• וַיִּקַּח [va-yi-KAKH] "and he took" (Genesis 2:15), with the dagesh of the assimilated ל in the ק
• קַח [KAKH] "take!" (Genesis 12:19; 22:2)
• לָקַחַת [la-KA-khat] "to take" (Genesis 4:11), from the infinitive קַחַת with the feminine ending

Two more doubly weak verbs are worth flagging: נָשָׂא "lift, carry" (I-nun and III-aleph: יִשָּׂא [yi-SA], Numbers 6:26) and רָאָה "see" (II-guttural and III-he: וַיַּרְא [va-YAR] "and he saw," Genesis 1:4, shortened from יִרְאֶה).

Finding the root: a method

Faced with a weak form, do not guess. Strip what you know, count what is left, and ask a fixed series of questions. Most forms give themselves up by the third question.

The classes at a glance

Updated October 28, 2026.