of common gender, the fem. form הִיא occurring only 11 times, viz. Gn 14:2 ; 20:5 ; 38:25 ( v. Mass here), Lv 11:39 ; 13:10 , 21 ; 16:31 ; 20:17 ; 21:9 Nu 5:1 3, 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 fem. pointed it הִוא (as a Qrê perpetuum ). Outside the Pent. the same Qrê occurs 1 K 17:15 Is 30:33 Jb 31:11a —prob. 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, 1 K 17:15 ( וַתֹּאכַל הוּא־וָהִיא to be read as וַתֹּאכַל הִיא־וָהוּא , on account of the fem. verb) ψ 73:16 Jb 31:11b ( פלילים כי הוא זמה והיא עָוֹן to be read as כי היא זמה והוא עון פלילים ), Ec 5:8 1 Ch 29:1 6. The origin of the peculiarity in the Pent. is uncertain. It can hardly be a real archaism: for the fact that Arab., Aramaic, & Ethiopic have distinct forms for masc. & fem. 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 A . D . 916, now at S. Petersburg, published in facsimile by Strack (1876), the fem. occurs written הוא (see the passages cited in the Adnotationes Criticae , p. 026). In Ph. both masc. and fem. 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 Ö shews that in the older Heb. MSS. the scriptio plena was not yet generally introduced, it is prob. 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 ( cf. De ^ZKWL 1880, pp. 393–399 ), that in the older language fem. forms were more sparingly used than subsequently. )

In usage הוּא ( f. הִיא ; pl. הֵ˜מָּה , הֵם , הֵ˜נָּה : v. הֵ˜מָּה is 1. an emph. he (she, it, they) , sometimes equivalent to himself (herself, itself, themselves) , or (especially with the art.) that (those) : a. Gn 3:15 הוא ישׁופך ראשׁ

he ( Ö αὐτὸς ) shall bruise thee as to the head ( opp. to the foll. אתה thou ), v 20 for she (and no one else) was the mother of all living (so often in causal sentences, where some emph. on the subject is desirable, as Ju 14:3 ψ 24:2 ; 25:15 ; 33:9 ; 91:3 ; 103:14 ; 148:5 Jb 5:1 8; 11:11 ; 28:24 Je 5: 5; 34:7b Ho 6: 1; 11:10 : Dr 1 S 1 4, 18 ), 4:20 Adah bare Jabal הוא היה אבי ישׁב אהלים he ( ἐκεῖνος ) was the father of tent-dwellers, v 21 ; 10:8 he began to be a mighty one in the earth, 20:5 ( αὐτός ), Ju 13:5 Is 32: 7; 33:22 2 K 14:7 , 22 , 25 ; Ho 10:2 he —the unseen observer of their thoughts and deeds ( Che ),

Mass Masora. Nor E. Norris, Assyrian Dictionary.

ZKWL Z. für Lutherische Theologie.