Hitpa'el: Reflexive and Reciprocal Verbs

Many hitpa'el verbs describe a change the subject goes through: getting warm, getting cold, getting excited, getting tired. Where English says “get” or “become”, Hebrew often uses hitpa'el.

There is often a pi'el verb next to it that means causing the same change in something else: חִמֵּם אֶת הַמָּרָק (warmed up the soup) → הַמָּרָק הִתְחַמֵּם (the soup warmed up).

The heart of the verb, ־לַבֵּשׁ, hardly moves. The front tells you the tense: הִתְ־ in the past, מִתְ־ in the present, אֶתְ־ / תִּתְ־ / יִתְ־ / נִתְ־ in the future and לְהִתְ־ in the infinitive.

The endings are the ones you already know from every other binyan: four present forms by gender and number, the person at the end in the past, the person at the front in the future.

If the root starts with ס, שׂ or שׁ, the ת of הִתְ־ swaps places with that letter. Not הִתְסַכֵּל but הִסְתַּכֵּל (looked): say both aloud and you'll hear why.

With צ the ת swaps and also turns into ט: הִצְטַלֵּם. With ז it swaps and turns into ד: הִזְדַּקֵּן. The change stays in every tense: מִסְתַּכֵּל, יִצְטַלֵּם, לְהִזְדַּקֵּן.

Some of the most frequent verbs in Hebrew are hitpa'el with no “self” or “each other” in them at all. Don't analyse them, just learn them as words: הִתְקַשֵּׁר (called), הִתְגַּעְגֵּעַ (missed), הִתְעַנְיֵן (was interested).

What they do share: hitpa'el verbs almost never take אֶת. The person or thing comes in with a preposition, and that preposition belongs to the verb.