Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Yigal,

I must be tired, but I am not following you. I'm not strong on all
diacritical marks.

>And for those who have no idea what I'm talking about: One of the
>functions of the "cantillation marks" in the MT is that of punctuation and
>syntax - roughly what is done by periods and commas in modern writing, but
>not quite the same. In the MT, the Ten Commandments are divided into 13
>verses - Ex. 20 2-14 (the English tradition divides the Hebrew vs. 13,
>which includes "Don't kill" through "Don't bear false witness" into 4
>verses and thus has a total of 16).

HH: Counting by soph pasuq, I seem to get eleven MT verse divisions
including Ex 20:2 and 20:16, which I count as the last commandment: 2, 3-5,
6, 7, 8-11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17.

However, the MT also provides an alternate set of marks, in which each
commandment is a single verse. This makes some, like the second and the
Sabbath, quite long, by combining several "standard" verses, while in the
case of "Don't kill" through "Don't bear false witness", each is a verse of
its own. This "upper" marking is made for those occasions in which this
section is read publicly, in order to make the divisions of the
commandments clear to those who hear.

HH: Right, this is the one I was counting above. I don't see your first
type of division. How is it determined?

In many prints (such as BHS) the two appear together - that is, each word
has two or more marks.

HH; I don't see how each word has two or more marks. By word do you mean
individual word or commandment?

 In many Jewish Bibles meant for use in the synagogue, the Ten Commandments
are printed twice, one with each set of markings.
>However, as I said, the "upper" marks in the many prints (including BHS
>etc.) actually combine vs. 2 with vss. 3-6, which are usually considered
>in the Jewish tradition to be two separate commandments.

HH: I don't see that they are combined, except by the setuma. Couldn't the
setuma just say that the two commandments are related.

                                                Yours,
                                                Harold Holmyard