Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

Peter and Trevor are both correct, and this is exactly what I've been
discussing with Joseph. The Leningrad has both sets of marks, the "upper"
and the "lower", superimposed one next to the other. The patah goes with the
revi`a (the dot above the nun). The kamatz goes with the silluq/soph pasuq.
You're meant to read either one or the other: if your reading the "lower"
marks, which follow regular the verses, then "al-panay" is the end of the
verse. In the "upper" system, in which each commandment is a seperate verse,
"al-panay" is the middle of a verse. And yes, the double vowels in the word
"mittaxat" in vs. 4 is the same thing.

As I've since found out, in the Ashkenakic tradition, the "lower" reading is
used for public reading, when the decalogue happens to be a part of the
weekly Torah portion (as it was this past weekend). The "upper" reading is
used on the festival of Shavu`ot (Pentecost), which commemorates the giving
of the Torah and in which this section is read in sort of a "reenactment" of
the Sinai theophany - hence each commandment is read as a separate "verse".
In the Sephardic and Hassidic traditions, the "upper" reading is used in all
public reading, the "lower" is only for personal study. In the Yemenite
tradition (the "Tajj"), there is no "lower" reading at all.

Yigal

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
To: "Søren Holst" <sh AT teol.ku.dk>
Cc: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 7:19 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] "extra" patach in Ex 20,3 / Deut 5,7 ?


> On 19/02/2004 08:54, Søren Holst wrote:
>
> >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
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> I wonder if the patah here is intended to be an alternative
> pronunciation to the qamets, for use when this is pronounced as not a
> verse end (note that the sof pasuq is missing in BHS etc) and so with
> revia rather than silluq. This would correspond to the word MITTAXAT in
> Exo 20:4 which has both a qamets and a patah under the first tav, as
> well as two accents, indicating variant pronunciations.
>
> --
> Peter Kirk
> peter AT qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/
>
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