שָׂמַאל sâmaʼl — to use the left hand or pass in that direction
Translated in the KJV as (go, turn) (on the, to the) left.
a primitive root (denominative from H8040); to use the left hand or pass in that direction.
sâmaʼl in each stem
Hiph'il
Cohortative 1Infinitive construct 1Participle (active) 1Imperfect (yiqtol) 1Imperative 1
Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.
And the king said, Is not the hand of Joab with thee in all this? And the woman answered and said, As thy soul liveth, my lord the king, none can turn to the right hand or to the left from ought that my lord the king hath spoken: for thy servant Joab, he bade me, and he put all these words in the mouth of thine handmaid:
They were armed with bows, and could use both the right hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows out of a bow, even of Saul’s brethren of Benjamin.
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 ›