Genesis 2:16

This Hebrew akal tokel "idiom" has been traditionally called the “intensifying infinitive absolute”. Because it has been misunderstood, many translations put in “surely” or "freely". The LITV and YLT rendered it a little bit more accurately, “eating you do eat” or “dying you do die”. There is no preposition "to" so it cannot be "to eat". The same Hebraism is used in the following verse for “dying, you are dying” and in 3:16 “multiplying I am multiplying”. The dualistic sense of this can be compared with Zechariah 11:9, “the dying, let die; and the cut off, let be cut off”. Gesenius also thought the repetition of words was for some "emphatic" sense.

This “idiom” must be translated fully so that we can see a connection to the words in the NT where Christ speaks the command which is commanded to him to speak, and it is only one command:

"For myself from out of myself has not spoken, but the father himself, having sent myself, commanded what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that the command of himself is eternal zoe-life which myself therefore is speaking, just as the father has said to myself; thus I speak." (John 12:49-50 RBT)

אכל Eat

Strong's To eat is in the complete form. Without the lamed preposition, we don't take it for an infinitive. The difference between okel and akal is a matter of pronunciation. The vowel points (and pronunciation) were imposed by the Masoretes. Which one is it here? Context determines.

אכל okel I ate

אכל akal He ate 

אכלה akalah She ate

תאכל tokel you are eating/she is eating (3rd person feminine and 2nd masculine singular are identical)

The Masoretes, a group of Jewish scribes and scholars, began adding vowel points to the Hebrew Bible in the early centuries of the Common Era. The process of adding vowel points, known as vocalization, was undertaken to preserve the pronunciation of the Hebrew text. The Masoretes are believed to have started their work in the 7th to 9th centuries CE, with the activity reaching its peak during the 8th and 9th centuries. Script is much easier to preserve than pronunciation, and thus the Masoretic work is prone to all sorts of "mispronunciations".