שָׁלַשׁ shâlash — to be (causatively, make) triplicate (by restoration, in portions, strands, days or years)
Translated in the KJV as do the third time, (divide into, stay) three (days, -fold, parts, years old).
a primitive root perhaps originally to intensify, i.e. treble; but apparently used only as denominative from H7969,; to be (causatively, make) triplicate (by restoration, in portions, strands, days or years).
shâlash in each stem
Pu'al
Participle (passive) 5
And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.
And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
For they were in three stories, but had not pillars as the pillars of the courts: therefore the building was straitened more than the lowest and the middlemost from the ground.
Pi'el
Sequential perfect (weqatal) 2Imperative 1Wayyiqtol 1
Thou shalt prepare thee a way, and divide the coasts of thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee to inherit, into three parts, that every slayer may flee thither.
And when thou hast stayed three days, then thou shalt go down quickly, and come to the place where thou didst hide thyself when the business was in hand, and shalt remain by the stone Ezel.
And he said, Do it the second time. And they did it the second time. And he said, Do it the third time. And they did it the third time.
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 ›