בָּלַל bâlal — to overflow (specifically with oil.)
Translated in the KJV as anoint, confound, × fade, mingle, mix, give provender, temper.
a primitive root; (also denominatively from H1098) to fodder; to overflow (specifically with oil.); by implication, to mix; to fodder.
bâlal in each stem
Qal (Pa'al)
Participle (passive) 38Perfect (qatal) 2Cohortative 1Wayyiqtol 1
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
And unleavened bread, and cakes unleavened tempered with oil, and wafers unleavened anointed with oil: of wheaten flour shalt thou make them.
Hitpolel
Imperfect (yiqtol) 1
Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned.
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 ›