Hebrew experts! is this plural?

[Sephania]

כא וַיַּעַשׂ יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים לְאָדָם וּלְאִשְׁתּוֹ, כָּתְנוֹת עוֹר--וַיַּלְבִּשֵׁם. {פ}



21 And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them. {P}

Particularly the word for skins but I would also like to know if garments is plural too.

[shmuel]

Not an expert, but `or (skin, hide, leather) is singular. Kotnot is the plural construct of kutonet (tunic). "Kotnot `or" is a construct chain meaning "tunics of skin". Here `or is a genitive of composition, in other words it identifies the material from which the tunics are made.

[Sephania]

Thanks Sh'muel, so by that you can't tell for sure if one or more animal skins were used to make these tunics or garments with?

[shmuel]

Thanks Sh'muel, so by that you can't tell for sure if one or more animal skins were used to make these tunics or garments with?

That's right. The purpose is to identify the material from which the tunics are made, not the number of animals used. This is a common usage in Hebrew, perhaps because Hebrew has a relatively small number of adjectives. But even when there is an appropriate adjective the use of a noun in the genitve position seems to be preferred.

[Israeli]

Shalom Zayit,

When joining two nouns in Hebrew as in this case, the second noun does not take on the plural form. Even if 1 000 000 skins were used, “or” remains in the singular form.

You CANNOT know how many animals or skins were used.


May the God of Israel bless you!

[Sephania]

Ok, great, thanks both of you!

Shalom!
Zayit