Telling somebody not to do something has a word of its own in Hebrew — אַל al, not the everyday לא — and a rule that surprises everybody the first time: אל is followed by a future-tense verb, never by an imperative. This page is that construction, its impersonal alternatives, and the register split the textbooks get backwards. The affirmative imperative itself, and the everyday habit of using the future for a command, are on the negative imperative and the future as an imperative.
אל plus the second-person future
The verb after אל agrees with the person you are addressing, in gender and number, exactly as an ordinary future-tense verb does.
| Addressee | Go! | Don't go! | Don't forget! |
|---|---|---|---|
| one man | לך | אל תלך | אל תשכח |
| one woman | לכי | אל תלכי | אל תשכחי |
| a group | לכו | אל תלכו | אל תשכחו |
Look down the first two columns and you can see why the negative command has to be learned as its own construction rather than derived from the positive one. לך and אל תלך share a root and nothing else; the imperative form is simply not available after אל. The same holds right across the language: בוא pairs with אל תבוא, תן with אל תיתן, שב with אל תשב, קח with אל תיקח.
אל תשכח לקחת את המפתחות.
al tishkákh lakákhat et hamaftekhót
Don't forget to take the keys. (to a man)
אל תדאגי, הכול מסודר.
al tid'agí, hakól mesudár
Don't worry — it's all sorted. (to a woman)
אל תגידו לו כלום, זו הפתעה.
al tagídu lo klum, zo hafta'á
Don't tell him anything — it's a surprise. (to a group)
אל תיקח את זה ללב, הוא ככה עם כולם.
al tikákh et ze lalév, hu kákha im kulám
Don't take it to heart — he's like that with everybody. (to a man)
Not only the second person
Textbooks usually stop at don't you. Classical Hebrew does not: אל governs a first-person or third-person future just as readily, and he.wiktionary's entry for אַל cites both — Job 32:21 opens אַל נָא אֶשָּׂא פְנֵי אִישׁ (let me not show partiality), and Psalms 121:3 runs אַל יִתֵּן לַמּוֹט רַגְלֶךָ, אַל יָנוּם שֹׁמְרֶךָ, where both verbs are third person.
Modern Hebrew keeps this alive in an elevated register: אל נשכח (let us not forget), אל יעלה על הדעת (let it not be imagined), and the frozen אל דאגה (no need to worry). You will meet these in a speech, an editorial or a memorial notice, not in a conversation.
אל נשכח מי עמד כאן לפני שנה.
al nishkákh mi amád kan lifnéi shaná
Let us not forget who stood here a year ago. (formal — a commemorative speech)
לא plus the future is not an error
You will be told that לא cannot make a command. That is not what the language does. The Academy of the Hebrew Language, discussing future forms in an imperative role, states that the negated command is always built on future forms, and lists the Decalogue's לֹא תִּרְצָח in the same breath as אַל תִּשְׁלַח יָדְךָ אֶל הַנַּעַר (Genesis 22:12). Both are negative commands; both take the future.
What separates them is force, and it is a clean split:
| אל plus future | לא plus future | |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | a request, a warning, a piece of advice | a categorical prohibition |
| Where it lives | ordinary speech and writing | law, regulations, contracts, terms of use, commandments |
| Room to argue | yes | none — the matter is closed |
אל תשמור את הסיסמה בפתק ליד המחשב.
al tishmór et hasismá befétek leyád hamakhshév
Don't keep the password on a note beside the computer. (to a man — advice from a colleague)
המשתמש לא יעביר את הסיסמה לצד שלישי.
hamishtamésh lo ya'avír et hasismá letsád shlishí
The user shall not pass the password to a third party. (formal — terms of service)
Same instruction, twice, and neither sentence could stand in for the other. Aim לא plus the future at a friend and you have stopped negotiating; aim אל at a contract and it stops being a contract.
The impersonal alternatives
Signage and public notices avoid addressing anybody at all. Hebrew has four ways to do that, and none of them uses אל.
| Form | Reads | Register |
|---|---|---|
| נא לא להפריע | na lo lehafría | polite request (formal, but courteous) |
| אין לפתוח | ein liftóakh | flat institutional prohibition |
| אסור לעשן | asúr le'ashén | neutral, usable in speech too |
| לא לגעת | lo laga'at | curt — a label, or a snapped order |
אין plus an infinitive is the one to recognise first, because Hebrew dictionaries gloss exactly this sense of אין as אי אפשר, אסור — it cannot be done, it is not permitted. Its uses are set out on אין, and the sign register generally on signs and notices.
אין לפתוח את הדלת בזמן הנסיעה.
ein liftóakh et hadélet bizmán hanesi'á
The door must not be opened while the vehicle is in motion. (formal — a notice on a train)
נא לא להשאיר מזוודות ללא השגחה.
na lo lehash'ír mizvadót leló hashgakhá
Please do not leave luggage unattended. (formal — an airport announcement)
Outside the impersonal forms altogether, literary Hebrew keeps one more negator worth recognising: בַּל and its compound לְבַל, which he.wiktionary glosses as שלא, מילת אזהרה and illustrates from Psalms 93:1, תֵּבֵל בַּל־תִּמּוֹט. It patterns with a future form exactly as אל does. You will meet it in poetry and in elevated prose; you will not need to produce it.
One spelling, three words
Unpointed אל is three different words, and only the vowels tell them apart.
| Pointed | Reads | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| אַל | al | the negative command word on this page |
| אֶל | el | the preposition to, towards |
| אֵל | El | a god — mostly in names and set phrases |
Genesis 22:12 puts the first two in a single clause: אַל־תִּשְׁלַח יָדְךָ אֶל־הַנַּעַר, do not raise your hand against the boy. Strip the pointing, as ordinary print does, and both words are אל. What disambiguates them in practice is what follows: a future-tense verb after אל means al, and a noun after it means el.
Common Mistakes
1. Putting the imperative after אל. The single most predictable error on this page, and it comes from good logic: you have learned לכי, you want the negative, so you negate it. Hebrew does not build it that way.
❌ אל לכי
Incorrect — the imperative form never follows אל. The negative command is built on the second-person future, matched to your addressee: אל תלכי.
✅ אל תלכי בלי מעיל, קר בחוץ.
al telkhí bli me'íl, kar bakhúts
Don't go out without a coat — it's cold. (to a woman)
2. Reading אל as the preposition. A learner who met אֶל first sees the letters and supplies the wrong vowel, which turns a command into a fragment that goes nowhere.
❌ אל תיכנס
el tikanés
Incorrect as a reading — with a future-tense verb behind it the word is אַל al, the negative command: al tikanés, 'don't go in'. אֶל el is the preposition, and it takes a noun (אל הבית), never a verb.
✅ אל תיכנס עכשיו, הוא באמצע שיחה.
al tikanés akhsháv, hu be'emtsá sikhá
Don't go in now — he's in the middle of a call. (to a man)
3. Letting the verb stop agreeing. Because אל never changes, it is easy to treat the whole thing as a fixed phrase and freeze the verb in one form too. The verb is a real second-person future and carries the addressee's gender and number — get it wrong and you have told a woman she is a man before you have finished the sentence. Both of these are correct; which one you say depends entirely on who is in front of you.
אל תלחצי על הכפתור האדום.
al tilkhatsí al hakaftór ha'adóm
Don't press the red button. (to a woman)
אל תלחצו על הכפתור האדום.
al tilkhatsú al hakaftór ha'adóm
Don't press the red button. (to a group)
4. Using אל to negate a statement. אל is not a general not. It exists to tell somebody not to do something, and it needs a future-tense verb behind it — so a sentence about what is or is not the case takes לא, however emphatically you mean it. That side of the split is on לא.
אני לא הולך לשם יותר, זה בזבוז זמן.
aní lo holékh leshám yotér, ze bizbúz zman
I'm not going there again — it's a waste of time. (m. speaker)
Key Takeaways
- אל plus a second-person future is the negative command: אל תלך, אל תלכי, אל תלכו.
- The imperative form never appears after אל, which is why לך and אל תלך look unrelated.
- The verb agrees with your addressee in gender and number. אל itself never changes.
- אל is not restricted to the second person — אַל נָא אֶשָּׂא, אַל יִתֵּן לַמּוֹט רַגְלֶךָ — and modern elevated Hebrew keeps אל נשכח, אל יעלה על הדעת and אל דאגה.
- לא plus the future is a real negative command, not a mistake. The Academy places לֹא תִּרְצָח beside אַל תִּשְׁלַח. אל requests; לא prohibits, and belongs to law, regulations and contracts.
- Impersonal alternatives use no אל at all: נא לא להפריע, אין לפתוח, אסור לעשן, לא לגעת. Literary בל and לבל are recognition only.
- Unpointed אל is three words. A future verb after it means al; a noun after it means el.
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Start learning Hebrew →Related Topics
- Negative Commands: אל תלך and the Future ProhibitiveA2 — Form ordinary negative commands with אל plus a second-person future, and distinguish them from categorical לא plus future in scripture, law and emphatic speech.
- The Future as an Everyday Command (תשב, תגיד לי)A2 — In spoken Israeli Hebrew the productive default for telling someone to do something is the second-person future — תשב, תגיד לי, תחכה רגע. The classical imperative is not wrong and the future is not rude; register, context and the particular verb all shape the choice.
- Reading Israeli Signs and NoticesA2 — A wall's worth of short public texts — doors, platforms, stairwells, shopfronts — annotated for the impersonal grammar Hebrew reserves for signage: יש ל and אין ל plus an infinitive, נא for a polite request, אסור and מותר for the spoken equivalent, and the verbless noun signs that name a thing instead of telling you to do anything.
- Making a Request PolitelyA2 — Build natural Hebrew requests with אפשר, אולי, בבקשה, רוצה and future forms such as תוכל—without mistaking directness for a lack of politeness.
- לא: The Basic NegatorA1 — לא is Hebrew's ordinary 'not'. It is one invariable word that stands immediately in front of whatever it negates — verb, adjective, noun or pronoun — and Hebrew has no auxiliary verb for it to lean on, so English 'don't', 'didn't' and 'doesn't' have nothing at all to correspond to.