The differences of אור and לאור

Question

וַיִּקְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ לָאוֹר֙ י֔וֹם וְלַחֹ֖שֶׁךְ קָ֣רָא לָ֑יְלָה וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם אֶחָֽד׃ פ בראשית 1:5 תנ"ך

In Genesis 1:5 the word in Hebrew לאור, what does ל before the word אור mean?

Answer 1

To introduce my answer, I will refer to Perry Webb’s answer wherein he wrote,

The prefix ל in Hebrew is a preposition, and here with לָאוֹר֙ and לַחֹ֖שֶׁךְ it makes the nouns the indirect object (dative).

While ל is certainly used in Hebrew as the marker of the indirect object, or the dative case, this is not its use in Gen. 1:5.

אֱלֹהִים (“God”) is the subject of the verb וַיִּקְרָא (“and [God] called”). What did God call? (The answer is the direct object.) God called “light”. Therefore, “light” or לָאוֹר is the direct object of the verb. A direct object “identifies who or what receives the action of the verb”.¹

For example,

The boy hit the ball.

In this sentence, “the ball” is the direct object of the verb “hit”.

The boy hit the ball to the girl.

In this sentence “the ball” is the direct object of the verb, and “the girl” is the indirect object, which “identifies to or for whom the action of the verb is performed”.²

It is evident that the clause in question in Gen. 1:5 does not have an indirect object. The word יוֹם (“day”) is neither a direct object nor an indirect object. It is an object complement which “renames or describes”³ the direct object (the object of the verb).

In the narrative, the word יוֹם (“day”) is the name of לָאוֹר (“light”), so it certainly suits the function of an object complement.

How then do we understand the prefixed preposition ל (lamed)? In this clause, it is functioning as a direct object (or accusative) marker.

According to HALOT,⁴

Also, Joüon and Muraoka,⁵

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Footnotes
1 Aaron; Fowler, p. 236 2 id., p. 238 3 id., p. 238 4 Baumgartner; Koehler, p. 509, ל, section 21 5 Joüon; Muraoka, p. 418, § 125k

References

Aaron, Jane E.; Fowler, H. Ramsey. The Little, Brown Handbook. 11th ed. Pearson Education, 2010. Joüon, Paul; Muraoka, Tamitsu. Grammar of Biblical Hebrew. 3rd Reprint. 2nd ed. Rome: Gregorian & Biblical Press, 2011. Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter. A Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Trans. Richardson, M. E. J. Ed. Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob. Leiden: Brill, 2002.

Answer 2

We can debate about grammar labels. but simply with the verb קרא meanings are:

1. the subject reads something (no ל).
2. the subject calls to (ל) a person or animal with hears that can respond. If there is also an object without the ל, that is what the someone is called, such as a name (שֵׁם). For example, I call you (אני קורא לך אלנה) Elena.
3. to call something (with the prefixed ל) a name, object (without the ל).
4. to call upon, with אֶל

The lexicons have addition ways קרא is used.

The prefix ל in Hebrew is a preposition, and here with לָאוֹר֙ and לַחֹ֖שֶׁךְ it makes the nouns the indirect object (dative). While "to" is unnecessary in English you can translate this, "God called to the light day and to the darkness he called night..." The וְ in וְלַחֹ֖שֶׁךְ is the conjunction "and." Basically, you call to someone, and you call them something.

לְ ... prep. to, for, in regard to... -- Brown, F., Driver, S. R., & Briggs, C. A. (1977). In Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (p. 510). Clarendon Press.

(d) Where, according to the Indo-Germanic case-system, the dative or ablative of the pronoun is required, the suffixes in Hebrew are joined to prepositions expressing those cases (לְ sign of the dative, בְּ in, מִן from, § 102), e.g. לוֹ to him (ei) and to himself (sibi), בּוֹ in him, מִנִּי (usually מִמֶּ֫נִּי) from me. -- Gesenius, F. W. (1910). Gesenius’ Hebrew grammar (E. Kautzsch & S. A. E. Cowley, Eds.; 2d English ed., p. 108). Clarendon Press.

It is true that קוראים לי is how you say "my name is" in Hebrew, like Spanish me llamo.