אָהַב ʼâhab — to have affection for (sexually or otherwise)
Translated in the KJV as love(-d, -ly, -r), like, friend.
or אָהֵב ; a primitive root; to have affection for (sexually or otherwise).
ʼâhab in each stem
Qal (Pa'al)
Participle (active) 66Perfect (qatal) 65Wayyiqtol 18Infinitive construct 14Imperfect (yiqtol) 11Sequential perfect (weqatal) 6Imperative 6Participle (passive) 5Jussive 2
And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.
And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob.
Pi'el
Participle (active) 16
Go up to Lebanon, and cry; and lift up thy voice in Bashan, and cry from the passages: for all thy lovers are destroyed.
The wind shall eat up all thy pastors, and thy lovers shall go into captivity: surely then shalt thou be ashamed and confounded for all thy wickedness.
All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not; for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins were increased.
Niph'al
Participle (active) 1
Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.
What the stems mean
A Hebrew verb is its root letters set into a pattern. The pattern — the binyan — is the grammar's way of saying three things at once: whether the action is simple, intensive or causative, and whether its subject is active, passive or reflexive. That is why one Hebrew word can need six English ones. All seven binyanim, explained ›