The infinitive absolute verb pairing explained.
Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die.
When speaking to a human man and telling him that in the day he sins he will suffer a punishment could only be understood as a literal day wherein he would receive that punishment. The word day means warm, which obviously is a reference to the daylight part of day so this punishment did not occur at night. The word can mean longer than a day in a figurative sense but the context of the passage shows a literal use.
Adam sinned and not long after he died. It simply wasn't a physical death but the type of death any sinless person suffers when they sin for the first time. Sin is a moral/spiritual concept, and the death it brings to a person is spiritual.
Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it:
for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
It is claimed by some that this actually means "dying thou shalt die" and is conveying the meaning of "a continued action over a long period of time" meaning Adam began to physically age when he sinned and eventually would die but is this actually an accurate translation and interpretation? No. Allow me to explain:
Gen 2:17 But of the treeH4480 H6086 of the knowledgeH1847 of goodH2896 and evil,H7451 thou shalt notH3808 eatH398 ofH4480 it: forH3588 in the dayH3117 that thou eatestH398 thereofH4480 thou shalt surely
die.H4191 H4191
Here we see the word "die" repeated twice, H4191 H4191.
One of the verbs will be written in a different verbal form than the other. That literally means one will have an extra hebrew letter/character despite being the same exact word. That spelling difference and which order the two verbs appear can alter the meaning of the verbs. One verb will be written in the infinitive absolute form. The other verb will be written in the conjugated/inflected form which has the extra letter/character. What the pair of verbs actually mean is based on which form appears first and which is second:
http://kukis.org/Languages/Hebrew4Dummies.pdf
This isn't relative because this is only when the verb is alone and not in a pair as it is in Gen 2:17.
This is when the infinitive absolute form appears first or before the conjugated/inflected form.
This is when the the conjugated/inflected verb form appears first or before infinitive absolute verb form.
So back to the verse and the pair of verbs:
Gen 2:17 But of the treeH4480 H6086 of the knowledgeH1847 of goodH2896 and evil,H7451 thou shalt notH3808 eatH398 ofH4480 it: forH3588 in the dayH3117 that thou eatestH398 thereofH4480 thou shalt surely
die.H4191 H4191
Here we see the word "die" repeated twice, H4191 H4191 or using an english transliteration, "muth t'muth". "muth" is the infinitive absolute verb and "t'muth" is the conjugated/inflected verb.
So in Gen 2:17 is the first verb in the "infinitive absolute form" or is the first verb in the "conjugated/inflected form"?
In that verse the first verb is in the "infinitive absolute form" so it appears first:
muth t'muth, so this meaning is the correct one:
