Tanach · Rishonim on Tanach · Ibn Ezra · Torah
Ibn Ezra on Genesis 3:12/אבן עזרא על בראשית ג׳:י״ב
אאשר נתת עמדי, אתה נתת הנותנת לי, וטעם עמדי בגן, והוא כמו עמי, אכן לא מצאנוהו כי אם בלשון יחיד המדבר.
1WHOM THOU GAVEST TO BE WITH ME. Thou gavest to me one who gave me the fruit to eat. The word immadi (to be with me) means the same as immi (with me). Its meaning is: to be with me in the garden. However, immadi, in contradistinction to immi, is found only in the first person singular.
בוָאוֹכל האל"ף סימן המדבר והנח הנעלם שיש אחריו תמורת אלף השרש, ובא עם קמץ קטן בעבור שהוא סוף פסוק, ולא יתכן שיבוא וי"ו קמוץ עם הפועל כי לעולם הוא בשוא:
2AND I DID EAT. The alef of va-okhel (and I did eat) is a first person imperfect prefix. Its vowel (a cholam) takes the place of the alef of the root that has been dropped. The khaf is vocalized with a tzere because and I did eat comes at the end of a verse. A vav prefixed to a participle is always vocalized with a sheva, and never with a kamatz.35 is a first person perfect and not a participle. I.E. makes this point because a participle is vocalized with a cholam over the first radical and a tzere beneath the second radical. Hence va-okhel at first glance appears to be a participle. I.E. points out that this is not so. As a participle it would not have a vav with a kamatz affixed to it since a connective vav is vocalized with a sheva. Since the vav of va-okhel has a kamatz beneath it, it must be a vav conversive, changing okhal, an imperfect, to va-okhal, a perfect. However, because va-okhal comes at the end of a sentence it is vocalized va-okhel.