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 and gender 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.

One method of puns is the so call read-spoken method. When using this method the Biblical Author will write the text one way but the reader is instructed to read it with an alternate different reading. Such a read-write passage creates what is called in literature a pun. Puns are a universal literary device used in all languages. Many scholars regard puns as simply another grammatical tool to convey messages intended by the author (See the above article for further details and references).

Todays example, Lv25-30, contains such a pun. The written text says And if it is not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the city with a wall shall become the permanent property of he who bought it throughout his generations; it shall not go out in the jubilee. while the text is read as stating And if it is not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the no-wall city shall become the permanent property of he who bought it throughout his generations; it shall not go out in the jubilee. The written-read text creates a pun. The Author intended that the text convey the message these laws apply to a house sold in a city [initially] with a wall but [currently] without a wall.

We will continue discussion of this interesting Rashi in rule #5, contradiction below. There we will present the explanation hinted at by the bracketed phrases that laws governing a house sold in a city with a wall apply even when the wall is no longer present. These laws are inferred from the pun created by the written-read text.

Advanced Rashi: Rashi makes one additional grammatical comment. The textual phrase city ...it has a wall uses a masculine form of it even though city is a feminine noun. The Bible changed the gender of the word city in order to accomodate the pun since in Hebrew the word for no and the masculine word for it are both pronounced the same. This Rashi stating that grammar can be changed for the sake of a pun is important and seems to have been overlooked by scholars.