English 'his' served as BOTH masculine and neuter possessive for over a thousand years ('the tree shed his leaves' was standard grammar). The word 'its' did not exist until the late 1500s and is absent from the King James Bible entirely.
Belonging to or associated with a male person or animal previously mentioned.
From Old English 'his' (his, its — genitive of 'hē'), from Proto-Germanic *hes (of him, of this), from PIE *ḱe-so or *ḱi-so (of this one), genitive of the demonstrative *ḱe-/*ḱi- (this, here). In Old English, 'his' served as the possessive for BOTH masculine and neuter — 'the man and his sword' and 'the tree and his leaves' were equally correct. 'His' only became exclusively masculine after 'its' was invented
'His' used to mean 'its.' For over a thousand years, 'his' was the possessive for both masculine ('the man and his wife') and neuter ('the tree shed his leaves'). The word 'its' did not exist until the late 1500s. Shakespeare rarely used 'its' — the King James Bible (1611) does not use it at