Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Vadim Cherny <him AT vadimcherny.org>]

IMO, all instances of hitpael in Hebrew are reflexive: doing something 
to someone or, more specifically, to cause someone to cause something. 
That is the only plausible interpretation of the suffix ht = hh, two 
casuatives (double hiphil, so to say).
That sense of reflective action is obfuscated in translation because 
equivalent English words lack the sense of reflexion, but I venture that 
careful examination shows such sense for every hitpael.

Vadim Cherny

Isaac Fried wrote:
> In present day Hebrew the BINYAN of HITPAEL is often used for mutual 
> action, for example, HIT-XABQ-U, 'they embraced, XBQ,  each other'. Is 
> there an instance of similar usage in the Hebrew bible?
>
> Isaac Fried, Boston University