יַעֲבִיר֔וּנִי (ya·‘ă·ḇî·rū·nî) in Nehemiah 2:7: Verb - Hifil - Imperfect - third person masculine plural | first person common singular
יַעֲבִיר֔וּנִי (ya·‘ă·ḇî·rū·nî) in Nehemiah 2:7
Source Word
Nehemiah 2:7 token 15 is יַעֲבִיר֔וּנִי, H5674, parsed V-Hifil-Imperf-3mp | 1cs and aligned with they will grant me safe passage.
How The Form Affects Interpretation
The form makes safe passage concrete as the governors' authorized enabling of Nehemiah's route, not a vague wish that travel will somehow go well.
How To Communicate It
Use the clause to highlight responsible preparation: Nehemiah requests the documents needed for officials to let him proceed to Judah.
What Not To Say
- Grammatical form should serve context, not override it.
- Grant me safe passage expresses authorized crossing in this purpose clause, not a new dictionary sense detached from context.
- The first-person suffix identifies Nehemiah as traveler; it does not promise that officials accompany him.
- Read the gracious hand of God from verse 8 rather than importing it into the Hifil form.
What Does The Label Mean?
Hebrew-verb
Verb
Verb - Hifil - Imperfect - third person masculine plural | first person common singular
Hifil
Imperfect
Third
Masculine
Plural
First person common singular
The plural governors are the requested agents who will cause or allow Nehemiah, marked by the first-person suffix, to pass through their territories. The imperfect belongs to the purpose of the requested letters rather than predicting passage apart from those authorizations.
The form states what the royal letters are meant to secure for Nehemiah on the journey west of the Euphrates until he reaches Judah.
What The Form Does In This Verse
The verb belongs to the so-that clause explaining why Nehemiah requests letters for the governors beyond the river.
Nehemiah's request to the king for documented permission to travel until he reaches Judah.
It portrays the regional officials granting the first-person traveler the passage their jurisdictions could otherwise impede.
It does not mean that the governors escort Nehemiah, guarantee an incident-free journey, or identify the king's approval as divine by morphology alone.
How Much The Form Matters Here
High: The form explains the practical result Nehemiah seeks from the royal letters: officials enabling his transit to Judah.
Plural Hifil imperfect with first-person traveler suffix. causes or allows the traveler to pass across the named jurisdictions. Attached to the governors west of the Euphrates as agents and Nehemiah as the person permitted through. Governed by the purpose clause attached to the requested royal letters. Administrative context motivates BSB's safe-passage wording.
What do the requested letters enable the governors to do for Nehemiah? They authorize the governors to let him pass through their regions until he arrives in Judah.
Interpretive: The causative passing form, officials, and letter request together support they will grant me safe passage.
Safe passage describes authorized transit here and need not mean immunity from every travel risk. The imperfect belongs to the requested result and does not state that the governors have already complied. The verse does not specify the wording or legal category of each letter.
Hifil creates a new safe-passage definition: Keep the lexeme's passing sense and let the letters and governors supply the authorization nuance. permission guarantees safety: The clause concerns officials allowing transit, not every condition Nehemiah might encounter. successful planning proves divine approval: Use verse 8's explicit gracious-hand claim rather than deriving providence from this form alone.
How The Interpretation Is Derived
Nehemiah 2:7 token 15 is יַעֲבִיר֔וּנִי, H5674, parsed V-Hifil-Imperf-3mp | 1cs and aligned with they will grant me safe passage.
עָבַר concerns crossing or passing in many settings. Here the causative form operates in an official travel request rather than a river crossing or ritual transition.
The preceding governors provide the plural subject, the suffix identifies Nehemiah, and the until-I-reach-Judah phrase sets the authorized journey's endpoint.
After the king agrees to send him, Nehemiah asks for letters securing transit and timber, combining prayerful dependence with concrete administrative planning.
Verse 8 attributes the successful requests to God's gracious hand; this form contributes the practical means of travel without itself encoding that theological judgment.
Show how the requested letters, named governors, object suffix, and destination together turn a broad crossing verb into the idea of officially permitted transit.
Do not equate administrative permission with automatic divine endorsement or infer complete safety from the causative stem.