Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Matthew Anstey" <manstey AT portal.ca>]

Gday B-Haverim,

According to Nasuti, Eissfeldt, Nielsen and confirmed by Rendsburg, Deut 32
is not archaic Hebrew but Israelite (Northern) Hebrew, a dialect different
from Judahite Hebrew. Some other IH texts in the MT are: Deut 33, Song of
Songs, Proverbs, 2 Sam 23, Qoheleth, reports of northern kings in history,
Hosea, Job, Neh 9; and Psalms 9, 10, 16, 29, 36, 45, 53, 58, 74, 116, 132,
133, 140, 141, and the Asaph and Korah collections. Some features of IH
according to Rendsburg are (his list is much longer):
1. relative pronouns zeh/zu/she
2. interrogative meh before non-laryngeal consonants
3. fem. sing nominal endings -at and -ot
4. particular words and word pairs
5. double plural construct chains (eg "heads of the sea-monsters" in Ps
74:13)
6. ablative be/le prepostions (ie be/le meaning "from")
7. Negative particle bal
etc

Here are some references:
Rendsburg, Gary 1990 "Linguistic Evidence for the Northern Origin of
Selected Psalms" SBL Monograph SEries.
Neilsen, E. 1977-8. "Historical Perspectives and Geographical Horizons: On
the Question of North-Israelite Elements in Deuteronomy" ASTI 11.
Nasuti, HP 1988 "Tradition History and the Psalms of Asaph." SBLDS.

With regards,
Matthew Anstey