Today, students of the Bible learn grammar from Biblical Hebrew grammar textbooks. These textbooks organize material by topics. Grammatical topics include a) verb mood and conjugation, b) plurality agreement, c) pronoun reference, d) subject-verb-object sequencing, e) sentence structure and type, f) the possessive and g) connective words, and many other topics.

However in Rashi's time gramamr was just beginning. There were no official grammatical textbooks and tables. One of Rashi's functions was to teach grammar. Rashi did not write a grammar textbook but instead left grammatical explanations appended to each verse.

In today's example Rashi explains rules about gender. Some background is useful. In Hebrew unlike English every word has a gender. Consequently possessive suffixes must reflect proper gender agreement. A punchy way of capturing Hebrew gender in English is to use in translations the anthropomorphic terms his and her. Using this convention we would translate Ex35-17 as follows: [The wise will make...] the hangings of the court, his pillars thereof, and her sockets, and the screen for the gate of the court; The Rashi comment is now readily understandable: The word court can be both masculine and feminine. Hence the switch in the verse: his pillars, vs. her sockets.

Advanced Rashi: Rashi in his commentary simply introduces the idea of bi-gender words. He does not explain why there is such a stark switch. However we can easily suggest that sockets are receptacles and hence feminine while pillars are masculine symbols.