a short word tacked onto a command, wish, or proposal that marks it as something put to the hearer rather than simply imposed
This little word turns up about four hundred times, and nearly always inside recorded speech: someone asking, ordering, proposing, or provoking. It never stands on its own. It leans on the word right in front of it, usually a command, and Hebrew normally joins the two with a short connecting stroke so that they are read as a single unit. Genesis alone accounts for roughly a fifth of all its appearances, while Deuteronomy, which is mostly one long address rather than conversation, has only two.
English Bibles handle it in every possible way. Older versions print "I pray thee"; newer ones write "please" or "now"; and very often a translation simply leaves it out, because English has nothing that behaves the way it does. Scholars have not settled the matter either, and the disagreement runs deep enough that the standard dictionaries define it differently from one another. Hebrew does have a heavier word for roughly the same job, the outright cry of appeal (אָנָּא), which can stand alone and which often shows up alongside this one in prayer.
What the uses seem to share is that the speaker is putting something forward for the hearer to take up, rather than merely stating it. That one idea stretches surprisingly far:
- A person with no leverage begs a favor, and the word softens a demand into a request.
- A father, a king, or God himself gives an order, and the word draws the hearer into it rather than pleading.
- A speaker proposes his own next move, as in "let me turn aside and see," inviting the other person to agree.
- A speaker asks that something happen to somebody else, as in "let a little water be brought."
- A mocker dares an opponent to try what he cannot do, and the same word turns a command into a jeer.
About thirty times it attaches not to a command at all but to the small word that opens an appeal, most often the word that points something out (הִנֵּה), producing the familiar "see now" that begins so many speeches. Because the word itself is so light, its force comes almost entirely from the sentence around it. The same two letters carry a servant's deference to his master and a prophet's contempt for Babylon's astrologers.
When the ancient Greek translators of the Old Testament rendered it at all, they reached for δή, roughly "then, now," or for words meaning "therefore," and often they printed nothing. One phrase escaped translation altogether: the cry "save now" in Psalm 118:25 was carried over sound for sound into Greek as ὡσαννά, and reaches English as "hosanna," which is this very word riding on the end of a plea for rescue.
Nuances
What the particle contributes to God's command in Genesis 22:2. The verse is the standard test case for every general account of the particle, because a straightforward politeness reading would turn the command into a request.
- contestedIt is the ordinary request marker here as elsewhere, so a rendering with "please" is defensible even on God's lips; the particle redresses a command that would otherwise be issued bare.; Stephen A. Kaufman, "An Emphatic Plea for Please," Maarav 7 (1991): 195-198; Timothy D. Wilt, "A Sociolinguistic Analysis of NĀʾ," Vetus Testamentum 46/2 (1996): 237-255
- minorityIt marks the command as following from the situation just narrated, so the force is "then take your son" rather than "please take your son." Lambdin cites this verse as evidence that a politeness reading cannot be general.; Thomas O. Lambdin, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (New York: Scribner's, 1971), §136; Steven E. Fassberg, Studies in Biblical Syntax (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1994), 44-47
- minorityIt presents the command as a proposal placed before Abraham's will, however inescapable the outcome, which is what a propositive marker does.; Bent Christiansen, "A Linguistic Analysis of the Biblical Hebrew Particle nāʾ: A Test Case," Vetus Testamentum 59/3 (2009): 379-393