m. הִיא f. (plural m.
הֵ֫מָּה,
הֵם; feminine
הֵ֫נָּה,
הֵן [the latter only with prefixes]; see these words),
pron. of the 3rd ps. sing.,
he, she, used also (in both genders) for the neuter, it, Lat.
is, ea,
the same (The א is not orthographic merely, but radical, being written on Moab. and Phoenician inscriptions, though dropped in some of the later dialects. [In Hebrew only
Yirmiya 29:23 Kesiv, and in the prn.
אֱלִיהוּ.] Moab. (Mesha Inscription
6.27) and Phoenician (often)
הא; Aramaic of Zinjirli
הא, once
הו (D.H. Müller
Inschr. von Sendschirli 55); Targum
הוּא,
הִיא, Syriac
ܗܽܘ,
ܗܺܝ Arabic
هُوَ,
هِىَ (for
hūʾa, hīʾa, W
SG 104); Ethiopic ውእቱ, ይእቲ
weʾĕtū, yeʾĕtī; perhaps also Assyrian
šû, šî,
himself, herself, suffix
s̆u, ši, compare demonstrative
šuatu, šiati (see Kraetzschmar
BAS i. 383 & reff., W
SG 98, 105 Delitzsch's Assyrian Grammar § 55 b, 57). In the Pent.,
הוא is of common gender, the feminine form
הִיא occurring only 11 times, viz.
Breishis 14:2;
Breishis 20:5;
Breishis 38:25 (see Mass here),
Vayikra 11:39;
Vayikra 13:10,
Vayikra 13:21;
Vayikra 16:31;
Vayikra 20:17;
Vayikra 21:9 Bamidbar 5:13,
Bamidbar 5:14. The punctuators, however, sought to assimilate the usage of the Pent. to that of the rest of the OT, and accordingly wherever
הוא was construed as a feminine pointed it
הִוא (as a
Keriê perpetuum). Outside the Pent. the same Keriê occurs
Melachim Alef 17:15 Yeshaya 30:33 Iyov 31:11—probably for the sake of removing gramm. anomalies: five instances of the converse change, viz. of
היא to be read as
הוּא, occur for a similar reason,
Melachim Alef 17:15 (
וַתֹּאכַל הוּא־וָהִיא to be read as
וַתֹּאכַל הִיא־וָהוּא, on account of the feminine verb)
Tehillim 73:16 Iyov 31:11 (
כי הוא זמה והיא עָוֹן פלילים to be read as
כי היא זמה והוא עון פלילים),
Koheles 5:8 Divrei HaYamim Alef 29:16. The origin of the peculiarity in the Pent. is uncertain. It can hardly be a real archaism: for the fact that Arabic, Aramaic, & Ethiopic have distinct forms for masculine & feminine shews that both must have formed part of the original Semitic stock, and consequently of Hebrew as well, from its earliest existence as an independent language. Nor is the peculiarity confined to the Pent.: in the ms. of the Later Prophets, of andd. 916, now at S. Petersburg, published in facsimile by Strack (1876), the feminine occurs written
הוא (see the passages cited in the
Adnotationes Criticae, p. 026). In Phoenician both masculine and feminine ar alike written
הא (CIS i. 1:9
מלך צדק הא, 1:13
מלאכת הא, 3:19
אדם הא, l:11
ממלכת הא, 93:2; 94:2), though naturally this would be
read as
hu’ or
hi’ as occasion required. Hence, as Septuagint shews that in the older Hebrew MSS. the
scriptio plena was not yet generally introduced, it is probably that originally
הא was written for both genders in Hebrew likewise, and that the epicene
הוא in the Pent. originated at a comparatively late epoch in the transmission of the text—perhaps in connexion with the assumption, which is partly borne out by facts (compare De
ZKWL 1880, pp. 393–399), that in the older language feminine forms were more sparingly used than subsequently.
)In usage
הוּא (f.
הִיא; plural
הֵ֫מָּה,
הֵם,
הֵ֫נָּה: see
הֵ֫מָּה is