1The purpose of the study is to investigate the use and meaning of nifʿal based on the representative corpus of nifʿal verbs in Genesis.

1.0. Theoretical Background

1.1. A Syntactic Study of nifʿal as Non-active Voice and Non-passive Voice

2The term ‘voice’ is used in at least two ways in the literature. First, voice denotes a particular alternation in a verb’s argument structure and is therefore considered a syntactic category, in which a verb’s arguments receive different prominence in the sentence through a variety of coding patterns. In the second approach, voice is considered a semantic category and voice alternations are typically considered to encode for semantic patterns based on the interaction between participants.

3In a syntactic approach, the syntactic structure underlying the voice patterns is analysed in relation to verb types and their argument structure. For transitive verbs, or verbs involving at least two arguments, the arrangement is always asymmetrical, with one argument being more prominent than the other. The active voice is the canonical unmarked voice pattern, where the agent is more prominent than the patient. Active voice contrasts with non-active voices, such as passive voice, reflexive voice, and middle voice, all of which have marked voice patterns.

4Edit Doron (2003) and Artemis Alexiadou and Edit Doron (2012) published syntactic analyses of two non-active voices in Hebrew, Greek, and English that are the morphological realisation of the two distinct syntactic voice heads μ and π, which generate middle and passive clauses, respectively. They presented a theoretical characterisation of the middle voice as distinct from the passive voice. What distinguishes the passive voice from the middle voice is that it always requires the participation of an external argument, irrespective of the specification of the root. In Hebrew, the passive binyanim puʿal and hofʿal are marked by a passive voice head and are used with an external argument. This contrasts with the active binyanim qal, piʿel, and hifʿil, which are used on the clause or sentence level with two arguments, without an external argument. The middle binyanim nifʿal and hitpaʿel are characterised by middle voice heads and—unlike the active binyanim—have only one argument. They also differ from the passive binyanim in lacking an external argument. This, then, is the crucial difference between the passive voice and the middle voice: the presence or absence of an external argument. Instances of nifʿal and hitpaʿel verb forms indicate actions that (1) affect their subject without indicating the cause and (2) lack an external argument.

5In this article, I will build on Doron’s syntactic studies and consider the nifʿal binyan as expressing the middle voice and not the passive voice.

1.2. A Semantic Study of the Middle Voice

6In a semantic study of voice, clausal events are analysed in terms of participants (the referential entities involved in the event) and relations (the relationships linking the participants in a given event), the term ‘event’ serving as a cover term for actions, processes, circumstances, and states. On the semantic plane, the verbal phenomenon of voice is considered to express the type of action chains where participants interact with each other.

7In 1993 Suzanne Kemmer published her book The Middle Voice, which has become the definitive typological-semantic study on the topic. Central to her analysis is the notion of transitivity. She defines transitive verbs as verbs that involve two participants: the agent or initiator/instigator, who acts volitionally on another participant, and the patient/endpoint that is directly and completely affected by that event. In contrast, intransitive verbs involve only one participant. Many languages also know a middle voice of transitive verbs that involve one participant that stands in an initiator/endpoint relation to itself. The main function of the middle voice of verbs is to encode the affectedness of an initiating agent.

8Kemmer (1993, 243–47) summarises the main results of her study as follows. First, a number of languages give grammatical expression to an ‘in-between’ category, the middle, which in its most basic uses (body action middles, emotion/cognition middles) has a single participant that is, however, seen as internally complex. Second, the reflexive is semantically intermediate between prototypical one-participant events and two-participant events in terms of the number of participants involved. The conceptual distinction between initiating agent and affected patient in a reflexive situation type, despite their co-reference, makes it so that some separation of the two participants is maintained. Third, the middle is a semantic area comprising events in which the initiating agent is also the affected patient, and the event is characterised by a low degree of elaboration. Semantically, the middle voice differs from the reflexive voice in terms of participant distinguishability: for the reflexive voice the event is characterised by a high degree of elaboration. The way the single configuration is expressed by middle voice verbs varies among languages. See below, §1.4, for further detail and Table 1 for English examples.

1.3. A Semantic Study of nifʿal as Middle Voice: A Survey of Recent Literature

9Traditional Biblical Hebrew grammars published in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Gesenius, Ewald, König, Bergsträsser, Bauer and Leander, Brockelmann, Joüon, Meyer, Lambdin, Joüon and Muraoka, Waltke and O’Connor, Van der Merwe, Naudé, and Kroeze) often claim that the nifʿal has a primarily reflexive or passive meaning. Modern scholars, by contrast, have begun to doubt this claim and have started to explore the nifʿal anew.1

10Based on an analysis of all occurrences of nifʿal verbs in the Hebrew Bible, Steven Boyd (1993) demonstrated that almost all the nifʿals thought to be reflexive are in fact agentless middles.2 Subsequently, Holger Gzella (2009) tried to combine the works of Boyd and Kemmer in his study of voice in classical Hebrew and agreed that most nifʿal forms do not express reflexive voice, but can be analysed as agentless middles. However, both Boyd and Gzella reduce the semantic role of the grammatical subject to that of patient, in contrast to Kemmer, who emphasises the conflated configuration of the agent and patient role in the subject.

11In 2012, Ernst Jenni published a comprehensive analysis of the nifʿal that takes Kemmer’s study into account. He argues convincingly that the nifʿal indicates that the subject is concerned with itself, though not reflexively as a differentiated object, but as an undifferentiated middle, in which the prefix n- acts as middle marker.

1.4. Nifʿal as Middle Voice and the Seven Types of Middle Events It Can Express

12The present study of the nifʿal instances in the book of Genesis is based on Doron’s distinction between the middle voice and the passive voice and on Kemmer’s differentiation of the middle voice from the reflexive voice, as well as Kemmer’s semantic-typological analysis of the middle Voice in thirty different languages. Recent discussions of the nifʿal in Hebrew scholarship are also taken into account. Based on these insights, I take the following characteristics of the nifʿal as points of departure.

13The nifʿal in Biblical Hebrew systematically encodes two dimensions of transitive verbs: (a) simple agency and (b) middle voice. In terms of agency, the qal of transitive verbs expresses simple agency, in which the dual roles agent and patient are maintained, whereas the nifʿal of transitive verbs expresses simple agency in which the roles agent and patient are conflated in a single participant. As for the middle voice, the nifʿal expresses an event in which the subject is concerned with itself, not reflexively as a differentiated object, but as an undifferentiated middle.

14In its function as a marker of middle voice, the nifʿal expresses how a subject is affected by an event, while focusing on either the active side of the event (prototypically, body actions or mental actions and an initiating subject-agent) or the stative side of the event (prototypically, a spontaneous or anticausative change of state or resultative state or disposition), but not on its cause, source, or external agents. In other words, the nifʿal expresses a transitive middle event that affects the subject without indicating its cause, source, or external agent, thereby contrasting with the passive template, which requires an (implicit) external agent.

15A distinction can be made among various types of middle events marked by nifʿal:

1. body action middle events: Hebrew verbs that (semantically) designate body actions specify in nifʿal an event in which the subject is affected by carrying out an action in or through the body;

2. mental action middle events: Hebrew verbs that (semantically) designate mental actions specify in nifʿal an event in which the subject is affected by carrying out an action of mental rather than physical nature; this event can involve emotion, cognition, or perception; the subject is both initiator, in that the mental event originates within the mind of the experiencer, and endpoint, in that the experiencer is affected mentally;

3. collective motion middle events: Hebrew verbs used in the plural that (semantically) designate collective motions specify in nifʿal how multiple subjects are affected by collectively carrying out a movement with or through the body; each participant plays the same roles of agent-mover and affected patient in the event;

4. reciprocal action middle events: Hebrew verbs that (semantically) designate interaction between participants specify in nifʿal how multiple subjects interact with one another, while each of them plays their own roles of agent-experiencer and affected patient in the event;

5. spontaneous change of state or anticausative middle events: Hebrew verbs that (semantically) designate a spontaneous transformation specify in nifʿal events in which the subject is affected by an action that happens on its own, without the subject’s directly initiating or instigating the event;

6. resultative state middle events: Hebrew verbs that (semantically) designate states specify in nifʿal that the event is the consequent state of a previous non-profiled action affecting the subject;

7. dispositional middle events: Hebrew verbs that (semantically) designate an action and are (often) combined with adverbial or modal elements specify in nifʿal the subject’s disposition, circumstance, or quality. See Table 1.

2.0. Attestations of nifʿal Verbs in the Book of Genesis

16The book of Genesis contains 203 nifʿal verbal forms;3 for a list of the semantic classes of nifʿal verbs in Genesis and their frequency, see Table 2. For common finite nifʿal forms that occur three or more times in Genesis (twenty out of the eighty nifʿal verbs cited in Genesis) and the semantic classes they represent, see Table 3.

Table 2: Frequency of semantic classes of nifʿal verbs in Genesis

Table 3: Finite nifʿal forms in Genesis and their semantic classes

17The event most often expressed by verbs set in middle voice belong to the body action domain and comprise situations in which the subject is affected by performing an action in or through their own body. I will focus here on this group of middle body actions. In Biblical Hebrew, body actions are commonly expressed by qal (simple agency) or piʿel (intensive agency) verbs. For example, the qal verbs֙ ה ָ֙ ל ְַ֙ ך ‘go, walk’ and ב ֹ או ‘come, arrive, enter’ designate spatial movements that differ from those of the nifʿal verbs֙ נ ֶ֙ ח ְ֙ ב ָ֙ א ‘hide (intr.)’ and ֙ נ ִּ֙ ש ְ֙ א ַ֙ ר ‘remain, be left’, in that the nifʿal marks the event in such a way that the experiencing subject is comparatively more affected by the body action. A distinction can be made between various body action middles, namely, (1) verbs of translational motion, which mark the movement of the subject from one location to another along a path; (2) verbs of non-translational motion and change in body posture; (3) verbs of body care; (4) verbs of begetting or acquiring; (5) verbs of holding; (6) verbs of becoming perceptible (for numbers and verbs, see Table 4).

Table 4: Body action middles in Genesis and their semantic sub-classes

3.0. Nifʿal as Body Action Middle

3.1. Instances of nifʿal Verbs of Translational Motion

18The following nifʿal verbs in Genesis specify an event in which the subject is affected by initiating translational motion: (1) moving away from/towards: ( נ ִּ֙ מ ְ֙ ל ַ֙ ט 19.17 ,17 ,19 ,20 ,22( נ ִּ֙ ג ַ֙ ש ֙ ;)33.7); ֙ ( נ ֶ֙ א ֙ ס ַ֙ ף 25.8 ,17 ;35.29 ;49.29 ,33( ;)2) hiding: ֙ ( נ ֶ֙ ח ְ֙ ב ָ֙ א 3.10 ;31.27); ( נ ִּ֙ ס ְ֙ ת ַ֙ ר 4.14( ;)3) splitting: ( נ ִּ֙ פ ְַ֙ ר ֙ ד 2.10 ;13.9 ,14( ;)4) flowing: ֙ נ ִּ֙ ש ְ֙ פ ְַ֙ ך (9.6).

19The verbs in the first group of translational motion middles express movements away from or towards a place or person. In Gen. 19, the deity’s messengers exhort Lot to flee Sodom. The five cases of ֙ נ ִּ֙ מ ְ֙ ל ַ֙ ט designate Lot’s motion away from Sodom in a way that shows that Lot is very much affected by it: the nifʿal expresses both Lot’s act of fleeing and the impact it has on him. As both experiencing agent and affected patient, Lot is construed in a single bodily configuration as someone forced to flee for his life.

20The nifʿal verb נ ֶ֙ ח ְ֙ ב ָ֙ א belongs to the second group of translational motion, namely, hiding: א ֶ ק־ת ֹ ל ְ ך ָ֥֙ ש ָ מ ִַ֖ ע ְ ת ִּ י ֙ ב ַָ ג ָּ֑ ן ֙ ...֙ ו ָ חא ָ ב ֵֽ א ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden… and I hid’ (Gen. 3.10). The nifʿal is not a reflexive voice, as in French se cacher, but a middle voice as in English ‘hide’: it sketches the subject’s concealing in a single configuration, and depicts the man as both agent-mover and affected patient. At the same time, the description is not of the entire process of going from the open into a hidden spot to prevent easy visibility or discovery, but the end stage only. This stands in contrast to use of the cognate hitpaʿel two verses earlier, where the temporal process itself is described: ַ ו ֵָּֽ֑ י ִּ ש ְ מ ְ ע ּ֞ ו א ֶ ק־ת ֹ֨ לו י ְ ה ָ ו ָ֧ ה ֙ א ֹ ל ִּ ה ִ֛ ו םי ַ י ִּ ת ְ ח ַ ב ֨ א ה ֵָֽ א ָָ ד ָ֜ ם ֙ ו ְ א ִּ ש ְּ֗ ת ֹ ו מ ִּ פ ְ נ ֙ י ֙ י ְ ה ָ ו ֶ֣ ה ֙ א ֹ הל ִִּ֔ םי ב ְ ת ִֹ֖ ו ְ ך ֙ ע ָ֥ ץ ֙ ה ַָ ג ֵָּֽ֑ ׃ן ֙...‘They heard the sound of Yhwh God (…) and the man and his wife hid from the face of Yhwh God among the trees in the garden’ (Gen. 3.8). The hitpaʿel marks the temporal process of the act of hiding from beginning to end, not just the end result. This is, at least in this text, the main difference between nifʿal נ ֶ֙ ח ְ֙ ב ָ֙ א and hitpaʿel֙ ה ִּ֙ ת ְ ח ַ אב .

21The third group of nifʿal verbs of translational motion is represented by נ ִּ֙ פ ְַ֙ ר ֙ ד , used three times in Gen. 13.9–14. The first time is a singular imperative used by Abram and addressed to Lot: ֙... לה ֹֹ֤ א כ ָ ה־ל ָ א ֶָ ץר ֙ ל ְ פ ָ נ ִֶ֔ ךי ה ִּ פ ֶָָ֥ דר נ ִָ֖ א ֙ עמ ָ ל ָ י א ִּ ה־ם ַ ש ְ מ ֶֹ֣ לא ְ מיאו ִִּ֔ נ ָ ה ‘Is not the whole land before you? Please depart/separate from me. If you go north, I will go south… ’ (Gen. 13.9). The idea expressed here is that of Lot being offered the possibility of leaving Abram. He is the person who may perform the action of parting, though the action will also affect him. The NJPS translates: “Let us separate.” In that case the verb should have been set in the plural, in which case the action would have been reciprocal and both would have carried out the leave taking. But this is not the way Abram presents it. Rather Lot is presented as agent-subject and affected patient, although the action itself, pointing towards a future situation, is yet to be executed. Indeed, v. 11 tells us that Lot makes up his mind and chooses to journey eastward. But then, later in the same verse, again נ ִּ֙ פ ְַ֙ ר ֙ ד is used, but this time in the plural, ו ַ י ִּ פ ְֶָ֣ דר ִּ֔ ו ִּ א ִ֖ שי ֙ עמ ַָ֥ ל ֙ א ִֵָּֽ ויח ‘thus they parted’ (Gen. 13.11b), expressing a collective action, performed by Abram and Lot together. The third time, the same verb’s infinitive construct is used, providing a résumé of the event: ַ ו ֵֽ והי ָ֞ ה א ַָ מ ֶ֣ ר א ֶ א־ל ַ ב ְָ ר ּ֗ ם א ַ ירח ֙ ה ִּ פ ֵֶָֽ ל־דר ֶֹ֣ טו מ ֵֽ ע ִּּ מ ִֹ֔ ו ‘And Yhwh said to Abram after Lot had parted from him… ’ (Gen. 13.14). Here, again, the parting event is described not in terms of a mutual and collective action, but as one performed by Lot alone. So it refers back to v. 9, not to v. 11. Yet, the nifʿal describes it as a resultative state, that is, in reference to an event that happened before.

22And finally, the last group of translational motion is represented by nifʿal נ ִּ֙ ש ְ֙ פ ְַ֙ ך . In Gen. 9.6, the cognate qal participle in the phrase ֙ ש ֹ פ ְ ך ֙ ַ֙֙ ד ֶ֣ ם ֙ ָ ה ֵֽ א ָ ד ִָ֔ ם , commonly translated ‘whoever sheds the blood of man’, is followed by the nifʿal yiqṭol in v. 6b in ב ֵָֽ א ָָ ד ִ֖ ם ָ֙ מד ֶֹ֣ י ו ִּ ש ָ פ ְ ך , commonly translated as passive ‘by man shall his blood be shed’. The reason why the preposition ֙ - ב cannot indicate a passive construction with an external agent is given by JM (§132c),4 who conclude the following for an instrumental meaning ‘by’ (‘by means of’):

In Gen. 9.6 ב is used and not ןמ because man is here the instrument of justice (…): He who sheds a man’s blood, by (means of) a man shall his blood be shed. On the other hand, examples of ב with the meaning of the Latin ab are doubtful: in נ ֹ שו ַ ע הוהיב to be saved by Y. (Dt 33.29; Is 45.17) the meaning is rather per (Germ. durch) ‘through’. (JM §132e)5

23However, this understanding of֙ - ב in Gen. 9.6 is unique, and, in my view, led more by textual interpretation than by syntax. If however, the nifʿal is understood as signalling middle voice, this verse would not be syntactically unusual or irregular, but indicates that the blood is both the subject of the movement of flowing as well the affected patient. Then the verse can be rendered as ‘whoever sheds the blood of man—in that man his blood will pour’, which means that the murderer’s own blood will gush out of his own body (in an act of retribution).

24In all instances of translational body motion middle verbs in Genesis, the nifʿal designates an event in which the subject is both involved in and affected by the consequences of self-performed movements. In these cases, the nifʿal rarely reflects the entire temporal process from beginning to end, but more often the end stage, the result, or the impact of such a process.

3.2. Instances of nifʿal Verbs of Non-translational Motion

25Genesis contains the following nifʿal verbs of non-translational motion: (1) remain (behind): ( נ ִּ֙ ש ְ֙ א ַ֙ ר 7.23 ;42.38 ;47.18 נ ֹ תו ַ֙ ר ֙ ;) (32.25 ;44.20( נ ֶ֙ א ֙ ס ַ֙ ר ;)42.19( נ ִּ֙ כ ְ֙ ל ָ֙ א ;)8.2( נ ֹ חו ַ ל ,)8.12( ;)2) stay/lie down (in resting place): ( נ ִּ֙ ק ְ֙ ב ַ֙ ר 15.15 ;35.8 ,19( ;)3) stand (upright): ( נ ִּ֙ צ ַ֙ ב 24.13 ,43 ;28.13 ;37.7).

26The first group of non-translational middles express the event of ‘remaining (behind), staying (imprisoned), waiting’, not in the sense of being left behind, but as a description of the resulting state. After the Flood has destroyed all living beings, the nifʿal in ו ַ י ִּ ש ָָ֧ א ֶ ר א ְַ נ־ך ִַֹ֛ ח ַ֙ ו ֵֽ שא ֶָ֥ ר א ִּ ת ִֹ֖ ו ֙ ב ַ בת ֵָֽ ה ‘and only Noah and those with him in the ark were left’ (Gen. 7.23) describes Noah’s state. There is no implied agent leaving him behind. The same applies to the nifʿal participle ֙ נ ִּ ש ְ א ָּ֗ ר ‘is left (ms)’ (Gen. 42.38), where Benjamin is Jacob’s only remaining son, and for the nifʿal qaṭal in ֙ ל ֹֹ֤ א ֙ נ ִּ ש ְ א ַ ל ר ִּ פ ְ נ ֶ֣ י דא ֹ נ ִִּ֔ י ב ִּ ל ְִּ ת ָ֥ י א ִּ ג־ם ְִּ יו ָ ת ִ֖ נ ּ ו ו ְ א ְַ מד ָ ת ֵֽ נ ּ ו ‘nothing has been left before my lord but our bodies and our land’ (Gen. 47.18), when Joseph’s brothers refer to the final stage of the remaining process, which may be rendered more idiomatically as ‘there’s nothing left’.

27In Gen. 32.25 and 44.20, the verb nifʿal נ ֹ תו ַ ר describes other situations in which individuals remains behind. In Gen. 32.25, Jacob sends his wives and children over the river, and in the following clause ו ַ י ִּּ ו ָ ת ָ֥ ר י ַ קע ִֹ֖ ב ל ְ ב ַ ד ֹ ו , the nifʿal marks not the passive voice event ‘Jacob was left behind alone [by his wives and children]’, but the middle voice ‘Jacob stayed behind alone’. In Gen. 44.20, the very same phrase is used, this time to indicate that Benjamin is the only remaining son of his father and mother, since his brother Joseph has died. On both occasions, the nifʿal marks the event as one that affects the remaining character.

28In these and other cases of nifʿal verbs that express non-translational body actions, the nifʿal depicts the event of remaining (in a certain place), waiting (in the ark), resting (in the grave), or standing (in an upright position) as designating the consequent state in which the subject’s body finds itself with regard to a location. In all of these cases, the subject is both involved in and affected by the event and at the same time performing the action. Furthermore, these verbs describe not the entire temporal process from beginning to end, but only the final stage of this process or the resultative state of the body with respect to a given location.

3.3. Instances of nifʿal Verbs of Body Care

29The term ‘body care’ refers to actions that one performs on oneself. In the Hebrew Bible various verbs designate such actions: piʿel כ ִּ֙ ב ֙ ס ‘wash’ (44x), qal ָ ר ֙ ח ַ֙ ץ ‘wash’ (69x) or ‘wash oneself’ (3x), hitpaʿel ה ִּ ת ְַ ץחר ‘wash oneself (1x); qal ל ָ֙ ב ַ֙ ש “wear, clothe oneself, dress (intr.)’ (61x), hifʿil ה ִּ ל ְ ב ִּ שי ‘clothe, dress (tr.)’ (32x), piʿel֙ כ ִּ֙ ס ָ֙ ה ‘clothe, cover’ (132x), נ ִּ כ ְ ס ָ ה ‘be covered’ (2x: Jer. 51.42; Ezek. 24.8 ה ִּ ת ְ כ ַ ס ָ ה ,) ‘cover oneself’ (9x); qal א ָ֙ ז ַ֙ ר ‘gird oneself, bind (of garment)’ (6x), piʿel א ִּ רז ‘gird another’ (6x), nifʿal נ ֶ זא ַ ר ‘be girded’ (1x: Ps. 65.7), hitpaʿel ה ִּ ת ְ א ַ רז ‘gird oneself’ (3x); piʿel ג ִּ֙ ל ַ֙ ח ‘shave (tr.)’ (18x), hitpaʿel ה ִּ ת ְ ג ַ ל ַ ח ‘shave oneself’ (2x), hitpaʿel ֙ ה ִּ ת ְ֙ ג ָ֙ ר ֙ ד ‘scrape oneself’ (1x). As these examples show, verbs of body care rarely occur in nifʿal in Biblical Hebrew. When used transitively, the verbs are expressed in qal, piʿel, or hifʿil. When used intransitively, reflexively, or in middle voice they are set in hitpaʿel. From the absence of nifʿal instances we must deduce that ancient Israelites did not conceive of these kinds of events as middle actions, that is to say, as actions in which (part of) the body is both agent-experiencer and affected patient. This is true for the book of Genesis as well. Only two nifʿal verbs for body care appear in Genesis, namely the verb נ ִּּ מ ֹ לו , used 15 times in nifʿal with the meanings ‘circumcise the foreskin, be circumcised’, and the verb נ ִּ֙ ג ְּ֙ מ ַ֙ ל , used twice for the weaning of a baby. Instances of nifʿal נ ִּּ מ ֹ לו are concentrated in two chapters in Genesis, namely chs. 17 (10x) and 34 (5x). I will focus on the occurrences in Gen. 17, which are the following:

30‘he circumcised the flesh of their foreskin’ (Gen. 17.23 qal)

31In the ten instances of nifʿal נ ִּּ מ ֹ לו in Gen. 17, two grammatical patterns are discernible: (a) in vv. 10, 12, 27 the subject is a generic masculine plural ‘all male/all men’ and there is no direct object, while an indirect object is included ( ל ָ֙ כ ֶ֙ ם ‘among you [mpl]’ and א ִּ֙ ת ֹ ו ‘with him’); (b) in vv. 11, 13, 14, 23, 24, 25, 26 the subject is an individual person (Abraham or Ishmael) with ‘the flesh of the foreskin’ as direct object, and no indirect object is mentioned.

32In the first pattern, the agent-subjects are כ ָ ז־ל ָ כ ָ ר ‘every male’ and כ ָ א־ל ַ נ ְ יש ֙ תיב ֹ ו ‘all the men of his house’ and the nifʿal shows that all these men experience the event of circumcision, are affected by it, as well as collectively involved, ל ָ֙ כ ֶ֙ ם ‘among you’. In v. 10 the imperative (or infinitive absolute) ה ִּּ מ ָֹ֥ לו addressed to Abraham characterises circumcision as an obligatory part of God’s covenant of with Abraham and his offspring. This is the group the term ל ָ֙ כ ֶ֙ ם refers to. In v. 12, the yiqṭol ֙ י ִּּ מ ָֹ֥ לו expresses a general rule or obligation and once again the collective nature of the covenant is signalled via the prepositional phrase ל ָ֙ כ ֶ֙ ם : every boy will become part of the community through circumcision. And finally, in v. 27, the qaṭal נ ִּּ מ ִֹ֖ ל ּ ו describes the result of the previous actions, again in relation to Abraham’s family, this time marked by the prepositional phrase א ִּ֙ ת ֹ ו ‘with him’. On all of these occasions, an external agent goes unmentioned. Instead, the nifʿal middle expresses the general rule or obligation, as well as the resultative state of circumcision. Yet these verses do not focus on the acts performed on one’s body, although every subject is also experiencer and patient, but on the future (or, in v. 27, past) state of being circumcised and on its consequence for someone’s belonging to the community. The prepositional phrases ל ָ֙ כ ֶ֙ ם and א ִּ֙ ת ֹ ו indicate the beneficiary of this new state, namely, the community which these men join through the experience of circumcision. Thus, the nifʿal middle voice denotes the obligation of achieving the communal state of being circumcised, and can be translated into English as ‘to become circumcised’.

33In the second pattern, the nifʿal נ ִּּ מ ֹ לו describes the action of circumcision and takes ‘the flesh of the foreskin’ as its direct object. At first sight, this usage seems similar to active voice, but on further reflection, it, too, appears to express the middle voice. In v. 11, the nifʿal ּ נו ְ מ ַ ל ְ ת ֶֶּ֕ ם indicates that Abraham and his offspring were collectively responsible to have the act performed on their own bodies in order to come into the state of being circumcised. In v. 13, the infinitive construct + yiqṭol construction֙ ה ִּּ מ ָֹ֧ לו ׀ י ִּּ מ ִֹ֛ לו stresses this same obligation: ‘let every homeborn male become circumcised’. In v. 14, the relative clause֙ שא ֶֹ֤ ר ֵֽ ל ֹ י־א ִּּ מ ֹ לו ‘whose foreskin is not circumcised’ describes what happens when a man has not become circumcised: ֙ ְ נו ִּ כ ְְ ר ָ ת ִ֛ ה ה ַ נ ֶָ֥ פ ֶ ש ה ִַּ ה ִ֖ או עמ ַּ מ ֶ הי ָ ֙ א ֶ ב־ת ְִּ יר ִּ ת ִ֖ י פה ֵַֽ ר ‘that person removes himself from his people and breaks my covenant’. In other words, in vv. 11–14 nifʿal נ ִּּ מ ֹ לו expresses the condition in which a subject must act as agent, focusing on the consequent state in which he will find himself. The men’s future state will be characterised by circumcision and they are defined as persons who have been circumcised. This new state, then, is the sign of the covenant. Then, in v. 23, the actual practice circumcision is described using the qal ו ַ י ָ מ ָ ל ‘and he circumcised’.

34In the final section, vv. 24–26, two nifʿal infinitivi constructi ב ְ ה ִּּ מ ֹ ל ִֹ֖ ו point back to this event. V. 24 refers to the age when Abraham became circumcised and v. 25 to the age when Ishmael became circumcised. Thus, the events are summarised so that Abraham and Ishmael are depicted as having initiated the action of circumcision and as having been affected by it at the same time.

35Based on this analysis of the usages of the nifʿal נ ִּּ מ ֹ לו in Gen. 17 a twofold conclusion can be drawn. (1) Nifʿal נ ִּּ מ ֹ לו describes the event of becoming or having become circumcised as a rite of passage signalling entry into a covenant community. From this, it becomes clear why Biblical Hebrew verbs for washing, dressing, covering, and laundering are not expressed in nifʿal—for these actions require less personal involvement than circumcision, which is a permanent and intentional body modification. The nifʿal נ ִּּ מ ֹ לו expresses exactly this: that one is completely involved and moves from one state into another state of being. The qal מ ּ לו , by contrast, does not express the subject’s affectedness. (2) Nifʿal נ ִּּ מ ֹ לו belongs to two semantic domains: that of body action or care and that of community. In sum, the middle voice of the verb נ ִּּ מ ֹ לו adds two important shades of meaning to the qal meaning ‘circumcise’, namely that of affectedness and of group identity.

3.4. Conclusion: Nifʿal as Body Action Middle

36In the 78 instances in Genesis of nifʿal verbs that designate body actions, the verb describes an event in which the subject is affected by carrying out an action in or through its body. The nifʿal rarely reflects the entire temporal process from beginning to end; it more often marks the conclusive, final, or resultative stage of such a process, including the impact of the process on the subject. This is true for translational and non-translational body actions, where the nifʿal expresses the result of the movement or the event of remaining, as well as for attestations of nifʿal נ ִּּ מ ֹ לו ‘become circumcised’ in Genesis. It also appears that the middle voice can add shades of meaning to the verbal root: the five instances of nifʿal of נ ִּ֙ מ ְ֙ ל ַ֙ ט do not belong to the semantic domain of ‘movement’ alone, but also to the domain of ‘emotion’, while nifʿal נ ִּּ מ ֹ לו belongs not only to the domain of ‘body care’, but also to the semantic domain of ‘community’ or ‘people’. This may reflect the fact that these verbs do not express a self-contained event, but rather the resultative state in which someone finds themself (or comes to find themself), often in relation to the collective other.

37In sum, nifʿal verbs of body action in the book of Genesis conceive of the event from a final, conclusive, or resultative point of view. Expressed in middle voice, the events are not construed as unfolding over time, but as having been achieved, that is, as achievements that affect or have an impact on the initiating subject, who is at the same time the affected patient. In these middle constructions, the verbal root takes on new shades of meaning.