Day 62 of 75 · Parables and teaching
B-N-Y
bna: build
בנא · בניא
ܒܢܐ · ܒܢܝܐ
The feel
Bna is mason’s work: stone set on stone, a house, tower, or temple raised from the ground. Building begins with an honest choice, rock or sand. A wall and a household both stand through lives placed with and upon one another.
The root family
| Form | Pattern | Translit | Script | Standard | Qala rendering |
|---|
| bna | verb (Peal) | bnā | בנא ܒܢܐ | to build | build: 22 occurrences in the corpus |
| banaye | agent noun, plural | banāyē | בניא ܒܢܝܐ | the builders | the builders: the rejected-stone saying (Matthew 21:42; Mark 12:10) |
| benyana | noun | benyānā | בנינא ܒܢܝܢܐ | a building, structure | building: standard Syriac lexicon; not glossary-matched in this corpus |
Paradigm forms are a teaching scaffold from standard Aramaic grammar; corpus-attested words above are drawn from the glossary.
The verb stems
| Stem | Form | Sense | Witness |
|---|
| Peal | bna | to build | corpus: dabna "who built" (Matthew 7:24); ebneyh "I will build it" (Matthew 16:18) |
| Ethpeel | etbni | to be built | standard lexicon; not found in this corpus |
| Pael · Ethpaal · Aphel · Ettaphal · Shaphel | — | — | not attested for this root |
Stem table is a grammar scaffold: how Aramaic bends one root through voice and cause.
In his voice
Matthew 7:24 · interlinear
So everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them is like a wise man who built his house on rock.
dabna bayteh , "who built his house": the Peal verb, closing the Sermon on the Mount. In the parable, the building is hearing that becomes acting.
Matthew 7:26 · interlinear
And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.
dabna again: the identical verb. The wise man and the foolish man do the same work with the same skill; the whole difference is underneath, in what the work rests on.
Matthew 16:18 · interlinear
And I tell you: you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my gathering, and the gates of Sheol will not overpower it.
ebneyh , "I will build it": the same mason's verb, with Yeshua as the builder and a community of persons as the stones.
Practice
Choose one sentence of Yeshua you heard this week. Do it once before today ends. As you act, ask: what is this resting on?
Say bna slowly: build. Let each sound feel like one stone placed firmly upon another.
Connections
Witness note: the forms above rest on the Peshitta as the primary witness, with Palestinian Aramaic attestation marked where a Western source carries the word.