What an Adjective Must Do

Every Hebrew adjective obeys three rules without exception:

• Agreement. Match the noun in gender (masc/fem), number (sg/pl), and — for attributive use — definiteness.
• Word order. Follow the noun, not precede it. Hebrew says "king good," not "good king."
• Inflection. Take one of four forms — masc sg, fem sg, masc pl, fem pl — to match the noun.

English adjectives are indeclinable and stand before the noun. Hebrew adjectives change form and stand after. You will train yourself out of every English instinct in this lesson.

The Adjective Follows the Noun

Hebrew is the mirror image of English here. The attributive adjective follows its noun.

Read right-to-left, take the noun first, then the adjective. Reorder mentally only as you produce the English.

Both Words Take the Article

When the noun is definite, the attributive adjective takes the article too. Hebrew says literally "the-king the-good":

Memory hook: matching ha-s = attributive. The two articles travel together.

Predicate: Before or After

The predicate adjective can stand either before or after the noun. Both word orders are common and mean the same thing.

The defining feature of the predicate is not position — it is the absence of the article on the adjective. Position is flexible; the article rule is absolute.

An Adjective Standing Alone

Hebrew lets an adjective with the article function as a noun. The implied noun is "person" or "thing."

Psalm 1 builds its whole architecture on two substantive adjectives: the righteous and the wicked. The adjective carries the meaning by itself.

Stress Moves, Vowels Reduce

When a suffix is added, the stress shifts to the end of the word. The long vowel at the start of the stem reduces to a vocal shewa — the same pattern you learned with דָּבָר → דְּבָרִים in Lesson 2.

Read it as: ge-do-LAH, not ga-do-lah. The little two-dot mark under the gimel is no longer a long "a" — it has reduced.

This same reduction applies to most adjectives whose first syllable is long and open.

"More than" — with מִן

Hebrew has no word for "more." To compare, it uses the preposition מִן ("from, than") attached to the second item.

Literally "good heart from-silver" — meaning: "the heart is better than silver."

• The adjective טוֹב stays in its plain form — no morphological change.
• The preposition מִן attaches to the second noun and carries the comparative force.
• When attached as a prefix it becomes מִ־ or מֵ־.

"The best" — Two Strategies

Hebrew has no word for "most" either. Two patterns do the work:

The adjective itself never changes form for comparison. Word order, prepositions, and the article carry all the work.

Attributive vs Predicative — Side by Side

The Drill Plan

What You Now Know

• Agreement: adjective matches noun in gender, number, and (for attributive) definiteness.
• Word order: attributive adjective follows the noun.
• Three uses: attributive, predicative, substantive.
• The article rule: matching ha-s = attributive; mismatched = predicate.
• Four forms: גָּדוֹל / גְּדוֹלָה / גְּדוֹלִים / גְּדוֹלוֹת.
• Vowel reduction: long vowel in the stem reduces to vocal shewa when a suffix shifts the stress.
• Comparative: preposition מִן + standard of comparison.
• Superlative: definite article alone, or a construct chain.
• Ten vocabulary adjectives from the most-frequent biblical corpus.

Drill the Adjective to Automaticity

Write out the full four-form paradigm of גָּדוֹל three times. Then translate each of these phrases:

Answers: (1) attributive — "the great king." (2) predicate — "the man is righteous." (3) feminine — "a wise woman."