Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryan Rocine" <brocine AT earthlink.net>]

Dear Wondell,

you wrote:
<snip>
> So from what I gather here, the prefix 'Mit'(Mem Tav)
means 'one who has
> converted' and the suffix could be the religion or
philosophy. Am I right?
> It sounds a lot like Arabic, where the prefix 'MU'(Meem)
indicates "One
> who is" and the suffix ending describes a quality or
characteristic to
> which the individual personifies.

I think *mit* is more properly referred to as a preformative
than a prefix, the reason being that it does not bear
meaning in and of itself in the same way as a prefixed *bet*
meaning *in* or a prefixed *mem* plus gemination meaning
*from*.  How ever *mit* may be used in a number of words
related to some sort of conversion, it does not in itself
mean conversion.  Rather, it is the preformative for the
hitpa`el participle, a verb in the hitpa`el stem often
having a reflexive sense.  For instance, whereas *qadash* in
the qal stem means *he (it) is holy*, and *qiddash* in the
piel stem means *he sanctified [something]*, hitpa`el
*hitqaddesh* means *he sanctified himself* or *he showed
himself to be sanctified*.  Whereas conversion may in some
sense be considered a reflexive act, we overgeneralize to
say that any verb in the hitpa`el stem is somehow related to
a conversion.

Shalom,
Bryan


B. M. Rocine
Associate Pastor
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13206

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