היה “be” is pa'al, root ה־י־ה, and belongs to the ל״ה class; its first radical is also the guttural ה. The fact that organizes the whole card is simpler than the irregular forms: היה has no present tense. Hebrew uses a verbless sentence for ordinary present identity, description, and location, while היה supplies the past and future.
Complete paradigm
The table gives the forms used in contemporary speech. First-person forms do not mark gender. In the future, the same plural forms are normally used for men, women, and mixed groups.
| Person | עָבָר past | עָתִיד future |
|---|---|---|
| I | הָיִיתִי hayíti | אֶהְיֶה ehyé |
| you, m.sg. | הָיִיתָ hayíta | תִּהְיֶה tihyé |
| you, f.sg. | הָיִיתְ hayít | תִּהְיִי tihyí |
| he | הָיָה hayá | יִהְיֶה yihyé |
| she | הָיְיתָה haytá | תִּהְיֶה tihyé |
| we | הָיִינוּ hayínu | נִהְיֶה nihyé |
| you, pl. | הָיִיתֶם hayítem | תִּהְיוּ tihyú |
| they | הָיוּ hayú | יִהְיוּ yihyú |
The normative pointed 2nd-person plural past is הֱיִיתֶם heyitém; הָיִיתֶם hayítem is the ordinary Israeli pronunciation shown above. A specifically feminine הֱיִיתֶן and the future תִּהְיֶינָה are standard forms to recognize in elevated writing, but everyday speech uses הייתם and תהיו for a group of women too.
| Form type | Forms | Register |
|---|---|---|
| הוֹוֶה present | — does not exist — | Present nominal sentences have no form of היה. |
| צִיווּי imperative | הֱיֵה heyé · הֱיִי heyí · הֱיוּ heyú | (formal / literary) |
| שֵׁם הַפּוֹעַל infinitive | לִהְיוֹת lihyót | neutral |
| שֵׁם פְּעוּלָה action noun | — no everyday form — | הֱיוֹת occurs in set written expressions, not as an ordinary action noun. |
הייתי בתל אביב אתמול.
hayíti betél avív etmól
I was in Tel Aviv yesterday.
היא הייתה מורה לפני שעברה להייטק.
hi haytá morá lifnéi she'avrá leháytek
She was a teacher before she moved into tech.
יהיה בסדר, כבר מצאנו פתרון.
yihyé beséder, kvar matsánu pitrón
It'll be fine — we've already found a solution.
What the spelling does not tell you
Three unpointed spellings fill two cells each. היית is הָיִיתָ hayíta “you were” to a man and הָיִיתְ hayít to a woman. היה is הָיָה hayá “he was” and the masculine imperative הֱיֵה heyé “be”; היו is הָיוּ hayú “they were” and the plural imperative הֱיוּ heyú. Pronouns, sentence position, and register do the disambiguating.
The 3rd-person feminine singular is written הייתה, with two yods, in modern ktiv male. The pointed display used throughout this guide therefore keeps that same skeleton: הָיְיתָה. Classical pointed texts often print the shorter הָיְתָה.
מה יהיה? אי אפשר להמשיך ככה.
ma yihyé? i efshár lehamshíkh kákha
What's going to happen? We can't go on like this.
אני רוצה להיות רופאה ולעבוד בצפון.
aní rotsá lihyót rof'á vela'avód batsafón
I want to be a doctor and work in the north. (female speaker)
The two high-frequency constructions
The first is היה + a present participle. It usually presents a repeated past habit, and both words agree with the subject. The same shape can also express an unreal “would”; the surrounding time frame decides. The complete contrast belongs on היה plus a participle, not in this lookup card.
כשהייתי ילד הייתי הולך לים כל יום.
kshehayíti yéled hayíti holékh layám kol yom
When I was a child, I used to walk to the beach every day. (male speaker)
היינו נפגשים כל שבוע בבית קפה ליד התחנה.
hayínu nifgashím kol shavúa bevéit kafé leyád hatakhaná
We used to meet every week at a café near the station.
The second is past or future existence and possession. Hebrew says “there was to me a dog,” so היה agrees with the thing that existed or was possessed, not with the possessor: masculine singular כלב gives היה; feminine singular מסיבה gives הייתה; plural שאלות gives היו.
היה לי כלב כשהייתי קטן.
hayá li kélev kshehayíti katán
I had a dog when I was little. (male speaker; היה agrees with כלב)
הייתה לנו מסיבה קטנה במרפסת.
haytá lánu mesibá ktaná bamirpéset
We had a small party on the balcony. (הייתה agrees with מסיבה)
היו לי שאלות, אבל לא נשאר זמן.
hayú li she'elót, avál lo nish'ár zman
I had questions, but there was no time left. (היו agrees with שאלות)
Commands and fixed wishes
The true imperative is now mainly (formal / literary). Ordinary speech normally uses the future form as a command or wish: תהיה to a man, תהיי to a woman, תהיו to a group. That is why תהיה בריא is everyday even though הֱיֵה בָּרִיא would be morphologically possible and markedly elevated.
תהיה בריא, ותודה על העזרה.
tihyé barí, vetodá al ha'ezrá
Take care, and thanks for the help. (to a man; everyday future-as-command)
Key Takeaways
- היה has past and future forms but no present tense; an ordinary present nominal sentence is verbless.
- Modern ktiv male writes הייתה, and several bare spellings are ambiguous: היית, היה, and היו each fill two cells.
- In possession, היה agrees with the thing possessed: היה לי כלב, הייתה לנו מסיבה, היו לי שאלות.
- The true imperative is formal or literary; everyday wishes and commands normally use תהיה, תהיי, or תהיו.
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- Hebrew Has No 'Am', 'Is' or 'Are'A1 — A persistent English-transfer error in Hebrew is putting a word where ordinary present-tense predication has none. אני עייף is complete with a zero copula, להיות is an infinitive and not a present tense, and יש is not a form of 'to be'.
- היה + בינוני: Habitual Past and Unreal SituationsB1 — Two words, two entirely different jobs. הייתי הולך is both 'I used to go' and 'I would go (if…)' — and nothing in the construction chooses between them, so you have to read the whole sentence before the meaning is fixed. What it never means is 'I was going'.
- היה: Past, Future, and the Missing PresentA2 — היה has a past, a future, an infinitive and an imperative — and no present tense whatsoever. That single gap is what makes אני מורה a complete Hebrew sentence, and it is what these forms are for: they supply the tenses a verbless sentence cannot express on its own.
- להיות: The Infinitive of 'To Be'A2 — Use להיות only when Hebrew grammar calls for an infinitive—after wanting, necessity, possibility, purpose, or in a noun-like infinitive clause—not as a present-tense copula.