The rules of masculine and feminine numbers are explained in Mislol (This is a classic work of Hebrew grammar
of the late 18th century. The title page states that it is "by the great grammarian Chaim ben Naftali Hirtz Kesslin
of Berlin, a descendant of the truly famous eminent scholar, the author of the Tosefot Yom Tov , Vilna 1858).
There we find:
You can clearly see that the gender of numbers is indicated in reverse to other nouns that have Heh at their
end to indicate being feminine, and masculine does not have a Heh. In the case of numbers up till ten, the
masculine has Heh at the end, and in feminine there is no Heh. And so in shemonah ('eight') where the Nun
has a Kamatz, it is masculine, and when the Nun has a Segol it is feminine. However, from ten and above,
it is without Heh for masculine (achad asar, sheneim asar, sheloshah asar,etc. until tish'ah asar),
while feminine is with Heh (achat esreih, sheteim esreih, shelosh esreih, etc. until tesha esreih). (p. 261)
Rabbi Avraham ibn Ezra wrote:
You should be aware that Heh at the end of a word is a sign of feminine. Only in arithmetic
is this inverted for sheloshah, tish'ah, all of them are masculine, and the sign of the
feminine is the dropping of the Heh - shalosh, arba, up to eser. And if they are put in
construct form with a suffix Tav the masculine is mixed with the feminine. For example:
lishloshet achayoteihem. (Job 1:4; Yesod ha'Dikduk which is Sefat Yeter, ed. Nechemiah Aloni,
Mossad HaRav Kook, 1984, p. 168)
Parashat Noach 5762
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