Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jeremy" <jnorthct AT hotmail.com>]

Does anyone know the rationale behind the use of shorter and longer forms
for ordinal numbers (that is, those numbers that are expressed in the form
of: "in the nth year")?  The short form (e.g., Jer 36:9 masc., Jer 52:4
fem.) adds the letter 'yod' to the end of the number or a 'yod' + 'tau' in
the case of the feminine, while the longer form (e.g., Jer 36:22 masc.,
Jer 39:1 fem.) adds a 'yod' between the second and third letter, plus the
extra letter(s) added for the shorter form.  There is also a third form of
ordinal (e.g., Lev 25:22) that, in the case of the feminine cases, adds
the 'yod' after the second letter and adds only a 'tau' to the end.  What
are the rules governing these different spellings??

Jeremy