An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

a Before the decipherment of the Ugaritic texts (1.3.1) grammarians supposed that
the unaccented Hebrew suffix -āh, signifying “direction,” represented a survival
of the original accusative case ending -a. Ugaritic, however, was found to have
both an accusative case ending -a and an adverbial suffix -h like the Hebrew socalled
“he-locale” or “directional-he” suffix. 44 From this evidence it is certain that
Hebrew directional he is not a survival of the old accusative, 45 but a distinct
adverbial suffix. Roughly equivalent to the English adverbial suffix ‘-ward,’ this
suffix denotes some meanings similar to those designated by the accusative case;
it differs from that case in that it may occur with nouns governed by a preposition
and it distinctively emphasizes the notion of direction. 46
b The directional he may indicate the direction toward which an action is aimed.
The simplest such case of directional he is the word ה ָנּ הֵ
֫ .
1.
2.
3.
םי ִשׁ נָ אֲ ה־ת ָ אֶ
א ֵבהָ התְי ָ בּ֑ ָ֫
הַ
Take these men to (my) house.
Gen 43:16
ה ָמְ ימַ ֫ ָשּׁ הַ אנ־ט ָ בֶּ הַ
Look at the heavens.
Gen 15:5
Directional he may break up a construct chain (9.3d).
שׁיאִ הָ
א ֵבָ יּוַ התי ָ בּ ֵ֫ םי ִשׁ נָ אֲ ה־ת ָ אֶ
׃ףסוֹי ֵ
The man took the men to Joseph’s house.
Gen 43:17
ֵ
ֶ֫ ִ
Less often, he occurs on a prepositional phrase indicating the direction away
from which an action is directed.
[Page הוהי־תיב י ֵל ְכּ The vessels of YHWH’s house are about to be
186]
4.
ה ָלב ָבּ ִמ םיב ָשׁוּמ brought back from Babylon.
Jer 27:16
44 UT§8.56.
45 There are other, phonological arguments against this explanation.
46 The Samaritan Pentateuch tends to drop the suffix, as if modernizing; see Waltke,
“Samaritan Pentateuch,” 217. For a thorough statement on the biblical use of the he
suffix and the implications of its distribution, see J. Hoftijzer et al., A Search for
Method: A Study in the Syntactic Use of the H-Locale in Classical Hebrew (Studies in
Semitic Languages and Linguistics 12; Leiden: Brill, 1981). The contribution of
Hoftijzer’s study depends on his careful discriminations among the blocks, strata, and
genres of material investigated, allowing him to suggest, for example, that he-locale
before a rectum is a later (more advanced) construction than a free-standing noun with
he-locale.