Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Søren Holst <sh AT teol.ku.dk>]

Shalom, everybody

In some editions of the HB, the last word of the first commandment, in Ex 
20,3 as well as Deut 5,7, has what seems to me to be an "extra", unexpected, 
patach under the final yod: It says "you shall have no other gods 'al-panaya" 
(ending in -qamats-yod-patach), rather than the expected al-panay (with 
-patach-yod -- some 9 cases in evidence -- OR in pause with -qamats-yod as in 
Dan 8,18).

This is found in BHS, in the two Kittel editions I've checked (2nd ed. 1913 
(repr. 1925) and 3rd ed. 1937 (repr. 1961), and in the "Keter Yerushalayim" 
edition (Ben Zvi publishing house 2000).

It is NOT there in Aron Dotan's Biblia Hebraica Leningradensia from 2001 (nor 
in the Qoren edition).

As far as I can see in the facsimilie edition of Leningradensis (Eerdmans 
1998), the patach (or some spot of ink looking like a patach) is clearly 
there in Ex 20,3, possibly not so in Deut 5,7 (although I wouldn't bet a huge 
sum on it).

All that the BHS apparatus has to say the matter is that whereas in 
Leningradensis Ex 20,3 lacks the sof pasuq, this is added by "mlt Mss Edd" 
(many manuscripts and editions).

So how come the two most important editions of Leningradensis (BHS and Dotan) 
disagree on the matter?

And if the patach should be there, what is it? A special pausal form?

Any help greatly appreciated

yours confusedly
Soren Holst, Univ. of Copenhagen